Chapter Six – The Sixth Terrace: The Gluttonous

But tell me (and, as friend, forgive me if

excessive candor lets my reins relax,

and, as a friend, exchange your words with me):

how was it that you found within your breast

a place for avarice, when you possessed

the wisdom you had nurtured with such care?"

These words at first brought something of a smile

to Statius; then he answered: "Every word

you speak, to me is a dear sign of love.

~ Canto XXII, lines 19-27

There aren't many things about Dean Winchester that Castiel would categorize as "subtle", but those next few days and weeks gave him pause and compelled him to reconsider. The effect of Dean's choice to initiate a more definite connection between them at night gave rise to a change in his daytime demeanor that may not have been obvious, but it certainly seemed instantaneous to Castiel. Such that he firmly believed that even Dean was not fully aware of the delicate shift in his behavior. Dean had always been a physical person in every sense of the term: his body was made up of solid muscle and brute strength, he attacked with force and stamina (rather than Sam's speed and long reach), and more potently, his gestures of affection for his loved ones were always marked by gentle hands and actions of care rather than effusive declarations. As such, the signposts of his regard for someone often sailed right by the casual observer because Dean was a man who spoke through his body rather than his mouth. Castiel, however, noticed the change.

It was barely perceptible at first, a quiet slide into a more intimate way of relating to Castiel. A touch on the bicep to get his attention became warm fingers around his wrist. An elbow nudge to the side – coupled with Dean's trademark quirk of lips – to reveal a touch of humor became the back of his hand against Castiel's stomach. An open palm between his shoulder blades to check his health after a fight became both hands wrapped around his upper arms – just where Dean bore the print of his own hand – coupled with a searching gaze. Which eventually became one hand at his shoulder and the other wrapped around the back of his neck. The gradual shift to a greater familiarity over the course of several weeks might have been undetectable to most people, but not to Castiel. Every touch seemed a beacon to him, a sign of some fundamental change in the alchemy of his friend. Something that might indicate that he was not mistaken, that there was something there that was so very much more than friendship.

That claim was easier to believe at night. After the few first evenings of requesting Castiel's presence at his side, Dean seemed to reconcile himself with the decision and simply operated on the assumption that he would not be sleeping alone. The hunter would remove his leather jacket as he descended to the ground, folding it into a longer shape than previously, with room enough to pillow two heads rather than just his own. Dean would stretch out at one side and silently wait for Castiel to settle on the other. For the first few evenings, Dean laid out on his back, staring blankly up into the canopy above, his face carefully blank, until Castiel rested beside him; only then would the creases born of anxiety and stress of the day relax and disappear from Dean's face and he would allow his eyes to drop closed. Sometimes the hunter would murmur to Castiel as he calmed his vessel into a meditative state, softly babbling about memories of their shared experiences, postulating theories of what might be going on back on Earth. On the nights that Dean felt compelled to talk, Castiel simply listened, a quiet hum of breathing being his only noises as his friend used the anonymity of darkness to find the courage to eventually speak about his worries about Sam. Inevitably, those were the nights that propelled the shift in their dynamic, with Castiel resurfacing from his meditative state to find Dean curled around him, unconsciously seeking the comfort of his presence in sleep.

The very first time he had "slept" next to Dean, it was just Castiel's arm. Dean had rolled onto his side at some point during the night, and Castiel awoke to find his friend's forehead pressed to the round of muscle at his shoulder, the hunter's left arm wound around his with his hand clutching Castiel's and his right hand clutching a fistful of shirt at the middle of Castiel's chest. The sleeve of his scrubs fluttered lightly against his bicep with each of Dean's measured breaths. Castiel turn his head as minutely as possible to try to gain a glimpse of the hunter's face, trying to suss out whatever had motivated him to cling to the angel as if afraid he would evaporate as soon as the hunter closed his eyes. No answer presented itself as his friend's face reflected the unlined reposed of sleep. Perhaps more than he had ever seen before, and that from several years of watching the man rest. Despite his position, Dean looked … content. Castiel raised his unoccupied hand from the ground, had it halfway to Dean's cheek before he noticed the way it trembled so he let it fall back to the groundcover of leaves. Dean woke not long after and, upon realizing his rather telling body position, tightened his jaw, gave Castiel a single inscrutable look, then untangled himself and rose to begin his day as if the previous events were not at all unusual.

Not long after that, it became far more than just an arm. Dean's long limbs twined around Castiel's, his hands always clutching parts of Castiel's clothing, as if to anchor the angel to his side to prevent him from leaving. One leg would be thrown across Castiel's calves, a hot, heavy weight he could not escape, Dean's hands grasping his clothes and his face pressed into the lean muscle at his shoulder. While his friend seemed to derive some comfort from the touch, the posture still suggested to Castiel that even his unconscious mind was distressed that Castiel would be lost. It took him nearly two weeks to figure out a way to alleviate that distress. When he finally realized that Dean seemed to be instinctively seeking reassurance through this physical connection, it only made sense to affirm the bond through reciprocation. The next time Castiel felt pulled from his meditation when Dean curled his limbs around Castiel's body, the angel tentatively shifted a bit, wrapping his arm around Dean's back and cradling Dean's head in the inner pocket of his shoulder. The effect was immediate. Dean wriggled in his sleep, his right arm slithering across Castiel's belly to disappear under his trench coat on the opposite side and splay an open palm up Castiel's ribcage, Dean's top leg curling around Castiel's to insinuate his knee between both of the angel's. Castiel hissed out a breath without really meaning to, his cheeks coloring as he felt the warm weight of Dean's thigh pressing against his groin. When Castiel raised his other hand from the ground and hesitantly placed it on top of the arm that Dean had wound around him, the hunter nuzzled his face deeper into the folds of material covering Castiel's chest and let loose a thick sigh before slipping deeper into sleep.

Castiel felt the flush on his cheeks deepen in those first few moments entangled in Dean's embrace. He'd had no idea, really. The intimacy that could come from something so innocuous as sleep … suddenly, the years of Dean's protests that it was "creepy" that he watched over Dean as the man slept began to piece together into something that made sense. It seemed so harmless, lying down for rest next to someone, but this … closeness, the vulnerability of being at repose only compounded how much of a human's inner mind and heart could be revealed in sleep. No wonder Dean had seemed so discomfited by the request, by the possibility of laying his body next to Castiel's for something as innocent as sleep. Every atom of his body that rested against Dean's broadcasted a keen awareness of the hunter: the warmth of his body; the ever-present smell of leather and blood and gunpowder and something deeper, something earthier that was inherently Dean; the scratchy calluses on his palms and the sides of his fingers that bore the signs of constant use of weapons; the smoothness of the back of his hand underneath Castiel's; the thick ropes of muscles in the thigh draped over Castiel's hip; the heavy heft of his head on Castiel's shoulder; the rasp of day-old stubble against Castiel's dingy hospital shirt; the humid puffs of his breath against Castiel's chest. Suddenly, it seemed like a much more courageous gesture for Dean to have asked to share this with Castiel. Suddenly, it seemed a much less innocent gesture for Castiel to have accepted without question, as it was becoming increasingly clear that he had not fully understood what Dean had been asking. And, much to Castiel's wonder, it became increasingly clear as the nights stacked upon themselves that Castiel would not be able to remain as removed as he had expected, offering comfort but receiving nothing in turn.

Instead, Castiel found himself to be glutting on everything that Dean subconsciously offered up when his active mind gave way to rest. Perhaps he was able to seem disaffected and constant during daylight hours when Dean's outward behavior remained as it always had been, but in the darkness when the hunter sought out Castiel's comfort, Castiel's body, the seraph found his resolve crumbling away under an avalanche of longing and gluttony. Every touch that Dean unknowingly offered with his body when his mind was tucked away, Castiel devoured readily. His mind and conscience battled with his judgment, insisting that what he accepted and fed on from Dean were merely unconscious expressions of insecurity from a man terrified of being abandoned. Shame picked at him during the day every time he looked upon Dean's face, smeared with dirt and blood and bisected by the lines of anxiety and the stress of the journey across this barren place, but he couldn't seem to stop himself from gorging on the hunter's touches at night, regardless of his stinging guilt.

It wasn't until the fourth week of their new nightly routine that his friend unconsciously offered him the absolution he desired. The day had brought with it an unusual number of attacks, as if word had gotten out that the odd party was closing in on their goal and Purgatory was determined to keep them from accomplishing it. Somewhere near mid-afternoon, they nearly-literally stumbled upon an entire nest of vampires taking down a leviathan. When the five vampires succeeding in beheading the monster, they turned as a unit and snarled at Castiel, who had been cutting a swath through the trees in front of the group.

Dean flew into action, shoving Castiel aside to charge at the vampires, his wicked scythe-like weapon barely sticking a moment as it cleaved through muscle and bone as he hacked away at his opponents. Dean did not notice, as Castiel had, that one of the combatants had been brought up short as she scanned their faces, her expression dropping into one of great surprise. The hunter didn't register that the vampire called out his name, which caused Castiel to drop his hands and tilt his head to the side, taking only an instant to place her in his mind.

"Lenore," he said in quiet surprise.

But Dean raged on, advancing and striking with brutal force, his expression murderous, his face set, practically snarling beneath the sheen of sweat cutting tracks though the dirt and blood on his face. He didn't even seem to register that the petite female vampire wasn't even attacking anymore, channeling all her strength just to evade the swift reach of his blade, calling his name in increasingly panicked shrill cries.

"Dean," Castiel said, and couldn't help but be stunned that his voice had no effect on the hunter's single-minded determination to eliminate the perceived threat.

Benny stilled beside Castiel and watched, astonished, as Dean continued his assault. Lenore was tiring, directing all her attentions towards avoidance. This had to stop.

"Dean!" Castiel boomed, clasping a firm hand to his friend's shoulder and grabbing his upper arm to stop the lethal swing of his blade.

Only when the hunter's arm jerked in its aborted path, held back in Castiel's tight grip, did Dean visibly jar out of his trance and absorb the situation in front of him. Dean glanced from Lenore in front of him, cowering with her twitching hands still raised defensively in front of her, back over his shoulder to where Castiel regarded him with a furrowed brow and saddened gaze.

"It's all right, Dean," Castiel said in a calm, low voice. "She's not going to hurt me. Let it go."

For a moment, Dean just continued to glance between the two of them, his face gradually melting from tense anticipation to horror and shame. Dean lowered his weapon, arm twitching at his side, before opening his mouth. Castiel watched as Dean worked his jaw, trying to speak what was most likely an apology of some kind, but the hunter couldn't seem to find words. His cheeks colored heavily as he directed one last guilty look over his shoulder at Castiel before pushing past Lenore to disappear through the trees. Castiel only hesitated for the moment it took him to pat Lenore gently on the shoulder before he followed his friend's hasty retreat.

The rest of the daylight hours Castiel spent his time at an easy arm's reach behind Dean's left side, watching his friend carefully as the hunter stalked through the forest, his dominant hand clutching the handle of his weapon so tightly that the man's knuckles whitened. Benny remained uncharacteristically silent as well, regarding Dean with a steady gaze that held what Castiel thought might be just the tiniest touch of pity. The burly vampire departed without a word when darkness descended upon the night's makeshift camp site, casting the angel a potent look over his shoulder as he disappeared into the brush to make his rounds.

Dean settled on the ground as he always did, removing his coat and folding it for a pillow for both of their heads, but when he laid down for sleep, instead of stretching out on his back to wait for Castiel, the hunter turned away from him, curling onto his side and wrapping his arms around his heaving chest. Castiel scowled as he watched his friend, watched him quaver as he attempted to hold in sobs, clutching his crossed arms to his own chest and turning his face away towards the ground. Lowering himself to a crouch behind Dean, Castiel put out a hand to his friend's shoulder.

"Dean?"

The hunter just sank further into his own misery. He didn't shrug off Castiel's hand, but he didn't acknowledge it either. Unsure of how to comfort his friend, the seraph merely let his body ease down behind Dean's, propped up on his right arm to try to gaze over the hunter's shoulder at his face. Dean never turned towards the angel, but when Castiel moved his hand from Dean's shoulder to the rigid fingers clutching at his ribcage, Dean let go of the abused fabric and clasped onto Castiel's digits in a punishing grip. At somewhat of a loss as to what else to do, Castiel simply returned the grip and laid down behind his friend, his chest pressed against Dean's hunched back. Once Castiel had settled his head on the soft leather of Dean's coat, his friend's grip gentled and, with shaking fingers, drew the angel's arm forward until it wrapped around Dean's body, Castiel's hand drawn up between Dean's own crossed limbs.

Castiel barely breathed in those moments after Dean willingly cloaked himself in the seraph's embrace. The hunter seemed willing to accept the connection between the two of them when it was a silent request of his slumbering mind, but this was the first time Dean had consciously sought his comfort. Castiel gave it readily, squeezing his arm around his friend as tightly as he dared, and waited for Dean's next move. He was sure there would be one. What he didn't expect was Dean's voice, muffled but the pain still evident.

"I'm one of them, Cas," he moaned into the leaves and leather beneath his head. "I've become one of them. A mindless monster."

"No," Castiel responded immediately. When Dean's breath hiccupped in his chest, he ground it out again, louder, "No."

Dean didn't respond, so Castiel raised himself up as much as he could without breaking Dean's hold on his arm and placed his mouth near Dean's ear.

"You are not a monster, Dean Winchester. You are a strong, brave man who has spent his life facing down monsters. You survived Hell. You will survive Purgatory. And you will do these things not because you are a monster, but because you have the fortitude to look monsters in the eye and refuse to allow their evil to best you. Any other man would run mad in this place, would have left me behind to save his own life. You have faced a never-ending onslaught of combat simply because you refuse to abandon someone a friend—" Castiel's mouth pinched ruefully, "—whether that friend deserves such loyalty or not."

"You are a warrior, Dean. I have seen thousands and thousands of years of warriors, and I can assure you that the life of a warrior leaves its scars on even the best of men. And you are the best of men, Dean Winchester. You are not a monster."

A long beat of silence passed before Castiel noticed the corners of Dean's mouth twitch up just the tiniest bit.

"You know, Cas," Dean said eventually, "if I didn't know better, I'd think you had a crush on me."

The angel hmmphed indignantly and dropped his head back to the jacket-pillow with a soft whump of air escaping. He even scowled a bit for good measure when the hunter let loose a small, hoarse chuckle. But the hunter's grip didn't loosen on Castiel's arm, so Castiel slowly, gently tipped his head forward and let his forehead rest against the juncture where the back of Dean's neck met his shoulders. Castiel waited as Dean held very still for a moment, his chest inflating just a bit further as Castiel's breath puffed warm against the spot between Dean's shoulder blades. After two or three deep breaths, the hunter's body relaxed and he burrowed further into the leaves beneath him, settling in for sleep.

As the hunter's muscles gradually went liquid with fatigue and repose, Castiel felt the gentle circling of Dean's thumb on his upper arm, tracing a small arc against the skin just below the sleeve of his scrubs.

"Cas?" Dean murmured, his voice heavy with sleepiness.

"Hmmm?" he responded lowly, not wishing the break the spell that had descended upon them.

" S'nice," he mumbled. "Having you here like this. Feels nice. Comfortable. Like you're supposed to fit."

"Fit?" he queried, puzzled.

"With me," Dean said, as if it were the most obvious statement in the world.

Castiel stared down at the weave pattern of Dean's shirt and didn't respond. Eventually, the hunter's breathing steadied itself as he slipped into slumber in Castiel's embrace. Castiel didn't retreat into his meditation that night, merely absorbed the sensations of the hunter resting in his arms, relishing the way they "fit".

Virgil began: "Love that is kindled by

virtue, will, in another, find reply,

as long as that love's flame appears without;

so, from the time when Juvenal, descending

among us, in Hell's Limbo, had made plain

the fondness that you felt for me, my own

benevolence toward you has been much richer

than any ever given to a person

~Canto XXII, lines 10-18

If Dean wanted to be petty about the current mess he was in—and in his more frustrated moments, faulting someone else seemed like a great idea—he really could have kicked Benny's ass for ever opening his damn mouth about Cas. Had Benny never brought up the whole door-opening, going-native shit, Dean could have very happily gone on his way pretending that this 'bond' he and Cas had was just a really, really intense friendship and that the nonsense that made up said friendship, like all the staring and personal-space crowding and ruthless devotion, was totally normal for two men who'd been through the crap they had. Except that Dean had known long before that conversation ever happened that what he shared with Cas wasn't "normal" (whatever the hell that meant) in any sense of the word, any more than his relationship was Sam was what anyone would call "normal". Dean had been father, mother, brother, fellow soldier – just to name a few – to Sam, so that relationship couldn't possibly be summed up with one word: "brother". And Cas? How do you have a regular, beers-and-barbecues-and-weekend-golf kind of relationship with someone who could tap his finger on your forehead and fix your entire body, someone who literally pulled your soul out of HHHell, for fuck's sake, and built your body back piece by piece? How do you even find normal in that mess? So his relationship with Cas wasn't "normal". So-the-fuck-what?

Yeah, maybe Dean had always known that their 'bond' was about seventeen shades of screwed up, but Cas was his best friend. Whatever meat suit Cas was in, Dean knew that their relationship would probably be just as awkward-slash-powerful as it was now. Though, thank God that Cas wasn't still riding around in Jimmy's daughter, Claire; that would make his current crisis about 1000% more confusing and uncomfortable.

Now that Benny had shined a spotlight on the whole issue of potential attraction and/or sex, Dean had spent most days just trying to push aside any hint of personal crisis to focus on getting all of their asses the heck out of Monster Land. His lips quirked up a tiny bit as he watched the angel push through the brush ahead of them. Contrary to what Dean had expected, things with Cas had actually gotten better, less awkward even, since Dean had worked up the guts to ask Cas to sleep next to him. Cas seemed less irritable and Benny seemed to pick fewer fights with the angel. Dean was even sleeping better now that he wasn't having nightmares about losing Cas or finding him dead. The beauty part of it was that Dean didn't have to worry about what people who knew him would think or say if he looked at the angel a little too long or touched him a little too often. Benny had only ever known Dean as he is now, so he didn't feel compelled to butch up and bury all his shit or cover everything with a smirk and a joke every time either one of them did something that insinuated there was a deeper connection between them. As much as Dean hated to admit it, as much as he wanted to get out of here and go home … there was something freeing about being able to feel however the fuck he wanted to about Cas and not worry about how it would play to an audience. Something about Purgatory allowed him to just be Dean unfiltered. Pure. Well … as pure as Dean Winchester ever got.

The liberation left him with a fairly fucking huge problem, though. Namely, it wasn't just Dean's heart that seemed to be warming to the idea of "something more" with Cas. Every time they laid down to sleep now, Dean curled onto his side away from Cas because when the angel wordlessly pressed close against his back and laced a lean arm around Dean's ribcage, he couldn't lie to himself that he felt nothing. No, his brain had started spinning out all the different ways that he could show Cas how to "go native", and quite frankly, he'd never been so damn sexually frustrated in his life. Poor Cas was only trying to give Dean whatever consolation he thought his friend needed, not put the moves on Dean, for fuck's sake. The whole thing had started out as a desperate plea for comfort from Cas after he'd nearly ganked a creature that had never attempted to harm him, but after that …. Well, Benny was wrong about one thing: the idea of sex sure as Hell scared him in this particular instance. It annoyed Dean to have to admit even to himself that anything sexual scared him, but this did. It wasn't the sex itself, exactly – the only thing that gay dudes do that Dean hadn't done with a girl would be sucking another guy off – but more that when it came to Cas, sex wouldn't be "just sex" as Benny had said. It wasn't just that it would be sex with a guy; it was that it would be sex with Cas. Dude's a freaking angel. How could he even think about doing the dirty with an angel, let alone, you know, actually do it.

Of course, there was that time with Anna … but she'd been human – and female – at the time, so it hadn't felt any different than any other woman he'd slept with.

And okay, there was Balthazar and his bragged-about 'ménage a twelve', and Dean had visual proof of Gabriel and his very active sex life (gross), though those two assholes probably weren't the best examples of upright angelic morality. Though, given everything he's done in the last few years, neither was Cas.

Jesus Christ, why did everything in Dean's life have to be so fucking convoluted?

Before the gender of his partner of choice had ever been called into question, the issue of whether or not to have sex hadn't been so damn difficult. The answer was almost always "yes" and Dean couldn't remember ever having to be so worried about the consequences, because to Dean, "sex" and "consequences" used to just mean "wear a condom" and "don't slobber during foreplay". Even when he'd been with Cassie or Lisa, when the relationship itself had been complicated, the issue of sex never had been.

Maybe that was half of the problem. Sex had always come easy to Dean; getting it, doing it … he hadn't been fussed about it since he was a teenager. Partly because he knew he was good at it and partly because, for him, sex was rarely tangled up in the sticky hurdles and even stickier emotional complications that most people tacked on to it. With Cas, though, the situation could end up being nothing but complications. More than that, Dean didn't even really know how to navigate a situation in which not having sex was a main concern. He'd laid it out for Cas back when they'd come up against Famine: when he wanted sex, he went out and got it. Dean was "well-fed", and he'd never found that to be a potential downside until now. Now it seemed to have made him into a poster-child for greediness. He watched Cas as he cast those ice blue eyes up to the sky, shielding Dean with his leaner body as he scanned the surrounding trees for something Dean could only guess at with his comparatively dull senses, and couldn't help but feel like a glutton in comparison. Dean had described himself as "well-fed" back then; he'd never had trouble going after what he wanted, never had qualms about it. If he had a certain hunger, he tended the need.

Cas …. Cas had spent thousands of years being pure in the most literal possible sense of the word, and then when he'd eventually actually indulged in an act that Dean performed as routinely as brushing his teeth, it was with a devout wife. And Dean couldn't help but squirm when he thought of Cas implying, however vaguely, that the two of them had just been wasting time by not acting on their bond. Cas might not be pristine anymore, but being with Dean could only taint whatever goodness Cas had left in him, and the thought of it made Dean anxious in a way he couldn't even really explain.

He'd never felt about anyone the way he'd come to realize he felt about Cas. At least, he didn't think so, because he sure as shit hadn't gone through anywhere near what he has for Cas with anyone else and come out of the other side of it with the relationship still intact. Having to walk away from Lisa and Ben with neither of them remembering him had been torture, it had torn him to pieces, but he had done it without hesitation. He'd known it was for the best, however it might hurt him to do it. The only time he'd ever been able to walk away from Cas was when he'd thought the angel dead. Even with Cas's betrayals and faults and missteps stacked against him, Dean had almost as much trouble letting go of Cas as he would letting go of Sam. Hell, wasn't that what this whole nightmare in Purgatory had been about?

But really, what the actual fuck did Dean think he would be able to give an angel? Cas was damaged goods now, no doubt – anyone who'd been through their shit would be – but every mistake Cas made had happened because he tried too hard to do the right thing. Dean felt like most of the smoke Cas blew up his ass about Dean being heroic and a warrior and saving people ended up being cancelled out by all the selfish, self-indulgent bullshit he did just feed his baser instincts.

He couldn't help the way it all chased around in his head as he dropped down to his jacket-pillow that night. Cas sidled up next him as he had every night for the last several weeks, waiting until Dean had rolled onto his side before slowly sliding his arm over Dean's cotton-clad ribs. At first, Dean couldn't bring himself to press Cas's arm to his chest with his own as he had the last few nights. Really, why drag Cas down to his level by once again feeding Dean's gluttonous need for sex? Especially if there was any possibility that Benny had been wrong, had read Cas wrong, and it really was just all about being a good friend.

"Dean?"

Cas's voice fell on his ear so close and so unexpected that it raised goose bumps on his neck. Worry thick in the angel's voice, Cas stared at Dean as he clamped his eyes shut and bit at the inside corner of his bottom lip. When several seconds went by with no response from Dean, Cas started to pull back his arm.

Everything in Dean seemed to cry out all at once at the loss of the angel's warm hand on his chest. That, if nothing else, telegraphed to Dean that this wasn't just about the sexual tension between the two of them. Not for him. His body already felt cold without Cas's soothing arm, and Dean realized with a jolt that what set Cas apart from all the women he'd ever cared about was that his feelings had developed in the opposite direction: they were purer, deeper, because they had started in his heart, and his body just started to reach out now because it had finally gotten on board.

Dean stretched back swiftly and caught Cas's wrist before it disappeared from his side into the folds of that stupid trench coat. Without wasting any more time, Dean gently tugged the angel's arm back in place, relaxing into sleep only after he felt Cas's steady breaths on the back of his neck.

And -there!-"Labia mea, Domine"

was wept and sung and heard in such a manner

that it gave birth to both delight and sorrow.

~Canto XXIII, lines 10-12

Being roused from meditation by Dean's restless shifting had become second-nature over the past few weeks, and given Dean's inexplicable upset before settling down to sleep that evening, Castiel was hardly surprised to be pulled to full awareness after only a few hours of calm. Reaching out with his senses, dulled somewhat by the fug of supernatural disturbance inherent in the darkness of Purgatory but still sharper than the rest of their party, the seraph scanned for signs of a threat lurking in the gloomy trees around them. Finding nothing, Castiel blinked his eyes open and regarded the man in front of him.

While he could detect nothing obviously wrong with Dean, Castiel felt certain that something was amiss. Still wrapped in Castiel's arms, the hunter held himself unnaturally rigid, every muscle straining with the effort to keep still. His position had not changed, though, so Castiel could only surmise that this exertion served to keep his current position. Castiel couldn't help feeling more than a tad bamboozled. Their physical proximity had increased slightly more than usual – with Dean's knees bent and drawn up, Castiel needed to curl around him more than previous nights – but it didn't differ so radically that it would explain his friend's discomfort. Dean didn't show any signs of emotional distress or nightmares; in fact, when Castiel pulled himself up on one elbow to examine Dean's face, he found the hunter's eyes open and staring fixedly at a spot far ahead of him in the forest.

Castiel finally gave up. "Dean?" he inquired quietly, his mouth close to the other man's ear.

When the hunter said nothing, merely clamped his eyes shut and bit down on his lip, Castiel shimmied up a bit to get a better look at Dean's pinched expression.

"What's wrong?" Castiel began to ask, but as he did so, Dean shifted, and the action result in Castiel pulling in a lungful of air through his teeth in a hiss.

It took him a moment to process the reaction, to realize that the act of altering his position dragged the waistband of Dean's jeans across what Castiel noted belatedly was a fairly prominent erection. An erection that had formerly been pressed tightly against the small of Dean's back. Suddenly, Dean's discomfort and determination to remain still made a great deal more sense.

"Dean, I'm sorry," Castiel gabbled, his cheeks flushing as he scrambled to disentangle his arm from Dean's. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—"

His words skittered to a halt when, contrary to every outcome he could have expected, Dean's grip on his arm tautened, effectively trapping him against the other man's body. After a long moment of silence broken only by the hunter's measured, deliberate breathing, Castiel ventured, "Dean?"

Nervous energy suffused the air as Dean wordlessly moved to press Castiel's open palm flat against his sternum. Castiel felt the fingers that ghosted over his own tremble as they slowly guided his palm down the slope of Dean's chest. The jump of Castiel's heart within his vessel seemed to synchronize with the hitch in Dean's abdomen as their joined hands passed over the ridges of muscle beneath the cotton shirt. Dean's back pushed against Castiel's as he took a few more steady breaths. The action seemed to calm him because Dean managed to draw their tangle of digits past his waist until Castiel's fingers bumped into then slid over the bulge straining beneath well-worn denim.

Castiel barely even registered the noisy gasp that left his mouth. He was, however, very aware of the hoarse groan that left Dean's parted lips when Castiel closed his hand reflexively in surprise, slotting the hard length of flesh into his palm.

"Dean," Castiel breathed, his voice audibly shocked.

The hunter responded by turning his head so that just the top of his cheek pressed against Castiel's still poised above him and rocking his hips against the hand still loosely gripping his erection. Castiel couldn't help furrowing his brow in bewilderment. After all the avoidance and protestations and jokes to the contrary, it seemed impossible to consider that Dean could possibly reciprocate any of the yearnings that nearly swallowed him whole.

And yet ….

If only to confirm that he had not misread or misinterpreted the situation somehow, Castiel pressed the heel of his hand down where Dean's erection pulsed under his palm, rubbing and squeezing tentatively. The hunter rewarded him with a gruff exhalation of "Cas!", Dean's lips moving tantalizingly across the growth of beard covering Castiel's jaw.

Every inch of his body took it in turns to ache and tingle with excitement. Castiel couldn't even be certain of his ability to process all of the sensations tumbling across his nerves, but Dean's response encouraged him so much that he tried again, this time with much more confidence, sliding the entire flat of his hand along the denim-covered bulge. Dean's hips jerked against Castiel's forearm, and the hunter released the angel's hand to dart back and clasp a firm grip on the round of Castiel's buttock. A languid roll of Dean's hips, bringing him alternately forward against the hand at Dean's front and then back to grind against Castiel's erection pressed into Dean's rear, had the angel letting loose a noise he wouldn't have recognized as his own had he not felt it scrape its way out of his throat.

"Dean," Castiel gasped, turning his face downward so that the corners of their lips brushed when he spoke. "Dean, I want—I want to please you. Tell me what to do …."

The angel nearly sobbed when Dean's hand left his rear but he shook with anticipation when a low rustle of fabric met his ears as Dean fumbled and rushed to open the fastenings of his pants. Dean grasped Castiel's hand in his, pushing away jeans and underwear to close the angel's fingers around his hot flesh in the still air. As Dean curled Castiel's fist around the base of his erection, Castiel greedily swallowed each one of the hunter's stuttering breaths as if he could survive on them alone. Following Dean's practiced movements, they jointly stroked the hunter's engorged length. Castiel caught the edge of Dean's bottom lip between his teeth momentarily, savoring the gasp of breath and jerk of hips that accompanied the action.

Obeying Dean's low mumbles of encouragement, Castiel's pulse raced at each moan of "tighter", "faster", "twist at the top, yes!"; he let the exhilaration chase through his veins unchecked, whatever instinct lay dormant in his vessel bubbling to the surface to wash away any coherent thought. Overwhelmed, Castiel buried his face in the crook of Dean's neck and inhaled deeply, pulling this man – his beloved human – into his lungs with each breath, surrendering to his borrowed body's demands. His hips rolled against the swell of Dean's rear, trying desperately to achieve some sort of relief for his aching erection. Dean's fingers slipped from Castiel's to reclaim their hold on the angel's buttock, urging him closer to the hunter's body.

Castiel reveled in Dean's quick descent from muttered directions to wordless, needy gasps as the seraph matched the tight down-stroke of his hand to the forward snap of his hips. Abruptly, Dean jerked in Castiel's arms, his muscles clenching as he quaked with the force of his orgasm. Dean's throat closed around a moan, body spasming, his grip bruising-tight on Castiel's hip. After a moment of stillness, Dean urged him back to the rough buck of his groin against Dean's body.

Castiel caught Dean's eyes, bright and lamp-like in the darkness, as the taller man craned his neck to watch him, devouring the expressions of astonishment and desire that painted the angel's face. He thrust helplessly against Dean, hearing the man utter the three syllables of his full name with more tenderness and reverence than any prayer that Castiel had ever witnessed. Hearing his name fall from Dean's lips with such ardor, the seraph felt as if he stood in a cathedral where every bell had been rung at once, each nerve singing in fierce, primal joy as his climax overtook him.

Moments passed; Castiel couldn't even begin to hazard a guess at how many. Had someone forced him to put words to the sensation, he would have sworn that his true form had slipped free of his vessel, bathed itself in gold, and then fallen to Earth into a pool of sunlight. Who was he to know how long it took for such ecstasy to take place? A day? An age? A nanosecond? It could have been any or all of those things. He was utterly, blissfully lost to time.

Not Dean, though, it seemed. Castiel dazedly became aware of the hunter chuckling softly beneath him, so he turned a curious expression to the merry green eyes that regarded him.

"Finally made it back from wherever angels go when they come, huh?" he chortled. "Thought I'd lost you there for a minute."

"I never left," Castiel answered with a frown.

Dean laughed again. "Yeah, well … as positive as I am on the whole afterglow thing, can I move without offending you yet?"

Castiel quirked an eyebrow in question.

Dean rolled to his back and gestured vaguely between their bodies. "We're both a bit … sticky."

Castiel raised the hand that had formerly been wrapped around Dean, gazing at it thoughtfully and carding his fingertips through the remnants of Dean's orgasm. It had become unpleasantly sticky. Not to mention the front of his pants, he ascertained, gazing down with a grimace. Castiel narrowed his eyes at Dean, who was unsuccessfully stifling a snort of laughter, then passed his unoccupied hand over himself to remove any trace of their activity. The angel pinned back his friend – lover? Was that what they were now? – with a flat glare as Dean cleared his throat and nodded down to where spatters of his fluid and Castiel's still lingered on his stomach and hip.

"I should just let you remain sticky," he retorted with a scowl.

"Not if you want me to return the favor tomorrow night," he quipped, laughing outright when Castiel hastened to comply.

The angel pulled himself to a sitting position, favoring Dean with a small smile as the hunter resituated his clothes.

"Not going to try to go back to sleep?" Dean asked.

The seraph shook his head. "I'll watch over you," he replied as Dean settled back to the ground. Castiel spent the rest of the dark hours replaying the evening in his head and letting the sounds of Dean's passion-soaked voice play like a hymn in his head.

A/N – "Labia Mea Domine!" means "Lord, open my lips!" in Latin.