Dean waited in silence until everyone else left the room, including the demon's corpse, which Bobby carried out because Bela and Gabriel had to work together to keep Sam from getting too close to it — and even then, he didn't round on Cas immediately. Instead, he stalked up and down the length of the room, hunching his shoulders and keeping his eyes on the floor, and all the while acutely aware of the scrutinizing glare that followed him, of the chair (and the ropes that no one had taken off it yet) scraping across the carpet as Cas mojo'd it back to the desk, of Cas wiping the blood off of his blade and the sound of him re-sheathing it — Dean turned, and thought that he might give the angel a piece of his fucking mind…

…until he noticed that the stains had gotten cleaned out of the rug, leaving it as nauseatingly seafoam green as it had been before salt, a devil's trap, and a gallon and a half of blood had gotten on it. …And everything looked like nothing dangerous had fucking happened. As though Cas hadn't cut that demon to pieces, let his insides get all over the place or let the blood drip off the blade for just long enough that Sam noticed it, that Sam got triggered and got that dark, desirous look in his eyes… And then there was Cas. Just standing at attention, head held high, expression as apathetic and unmoving as it had ever been before he'd come to fall. Not that Dean's stomach turned at that thought, or that he felt his lungs clench up because they might not want to keep working if Cas was going to just run back to how things had been before. It was just different, that was all. And freaking unsettling, when the only sounds in the room were his feet thumping on the carpet and his and Cas's breathing.

Dean shook his head and decided that Cas didn't deserve his time right now, and that he certainly wasn't going to agonize over anything. Angsting over an ex-whatever was for fourteen-year-old girls — and shit, Cas would probably just fuck off back to Heaven when this hunt wrapped up. Dean's footsteps pounded away the moments that passed without either of them addressing the other, and just when Dean opened his mouth to make some kind of noise, Cas snapped, "There's hardly any reason for you to attempt pacing a ditch into the floor. It only works in those ridiculous animated shows that you watch."

Brandishing his finger at the angel, Dean huffed. "You shut your fucking mouth about my Looney Toons, blue eyes. Unless you really want me to go and tell Gabriel about how much you like watching late-night reruns of Rock of Love."

Very much against his will, pink flushed onto Castiel's cheeks; averting his eyes to the floor, rubbing at the back of his neck, he scowled. "It intrigued me as an ethnographic study," he explained, "even though I still fail to understand why those women went to such extremes to earn pathetic tokens of affection from that human mess."

"Hey, man, don't knock Bret Michaels either, okay?" Dean turned on his heel and returned to pacing — the less that he had to look at Cas, the better. He couldn't deal with the way his chest had twisted and writhed since the angel had returned, and if he just kept his eyes on something else — anything else — then maybe the burning would go away. "Sure, fine, he's no Robert Plant, James Hetfield, or Lemmy Kilmeister — Hell, he's not even a Jon Bon Jovi — but Poison had some fucking solid tunes." Bristling at the scoff Cas gave him, Dean rolled his shoulders and shook his head by way of loosening up the muscles in his back and neck. It didn't help that much.

"Yes, I seem to remember one you liked about… talking dirty to me?" Castiel arched an eyebrow, and left the place between the beds that he'd occupied since killing their demonic prisoner.

Dean scowled and shook his head again, trying to find anything that he could say in response to that and coming up a little more than empty-handed. "I would've pegged you as more of an 'Every Rose Has Its Thorn' guy," he bit out before he could stop to think about it. "Or is that considered too emotional back on Planet Vulcan?"

Tilting his head bemusedly, Castiel said, "…Star Trek is a work of fiction, Dean—" Dean cut Cas off, locking eyes with him and shouting that he didn't care about fucking Star Trek. "Forgive me, I must have misinterpreted." His tone hit Dean like a snowball to the back of the head, and something about it wormed down his back, giving him shivers, like when he'd been twelve, Sam eight, and under Bobby's direction, Sam had gotten Dean out of bed by putting ice cubes in down his shirt. Dean shuddered as he let his eyes fall away from Cas's.

"I mean," Cas continued, shaking Dean around and making him pay attention again, "I honestly can't say what I was thinking." Blushing against his will and hoping against reason that he hadn't been noticed, he finally aimed his gaze over to the door, instead of at Cas's junk, and tried to disguise this as simply stretching out after letting his shoulders locked up. While this did help Dean maintain some semblance of what little bravado he felt he had right now, it had the side effect of making him miss the dark-eyed, decidedly unchaste way that Cas watched Dean's t-shirt tauten across his bones and muscles. "After all, you are only the one who brought it up."

His eyes, Castiel silently assured himself, didn't darken with Lust — and this certainly was not behind the drying of his mouth, the tightness in his throat, or the way that the temperature room had apparently gone up several degrees. As an angel, he would have noticed even the most minute presence of one of the Seven Deadly Sins in the back of his mind — but still, he swallowed thickly. While Dean distracted himself with working kinks out of his spine and shoulders, Castiel loosened his tie and collar, undoing the top button of his shirt, trying (but failing) to take his eyes off of the strip of golden skin exposed between Dean's belt and the rising hem of his shirt. Off the subtle flexes in Dean's arms and legs. Off the way he grunted, off the way his face contorted when he found a particularly tense spot. Off the fading freckles, the hint of Dean's black boxer-briefs, and the little clump of fair hairs that trailed downward — all drawing Castiel's attentions and mocking him as Dean's low-slung jeans showed them off with pride to rival Queen Jezebel's. …This couldn't continue.

"W-what did you want to talk to me about, Dean?" Castiel implored, praying, despite its brevity, that Dean paid no mind to the stammer. "There's very little time to waste, and we have more pressing matters." Dean let his arms, and the ruse that he'd built with them, fall, and for a moment, all he could manage was staring at Cas as though he'd just sprouted tentacles and a second head. Again, though, he opened his mouth to speak and Cas cut him off: "Never mind. It isn't of import."

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," Dean snapped, taking his first steps toward the angel. "Don't you think I'm the one who makes that call? You know… since I'm the one who wanted to talk?"

"You certainly haven't made it seem that way."

"What the Hell is fucking with you, Cas—"

"Of the two of us, I think I have more of a right to discuss your adulterous behavior—"

Dean held up his left hand and shouted, "There isn't a ring on my finger, you dumb bastard!"

Castiel furrowed his brow. Without meaning to, he leaned closer to Dean — who'd gone and brought himself close enough already — and tilted his head… Their lips hovered dangerously close and Castiel felt a tingling in his chest, a yearning to just go where their bodies were headed… But, instead, he pulled his head back and sighed. Kissing, he could infer, was not conducive to fighting. "…I'm right here, Dean," he said. "You don't need to raise your voice to me."

Only now did Dean notice that he stood barely a foot away from Castiel, getting into the angel's personal space the same way that he'd always told Cas not to do. Huffing, he took two steps back and shook his head. The gnawing sensation in his stomach didn't mean anything, he tried to reassure himself; the way his pulse sped up was just adrenaline from being in a proper argument for the first time since the angel had left him (since both Sam and Lisa seemed to think Dean needed space to work things out, and Crowley and Bela spent too much time being uptight and British to make it fun). It also didn't mean anything that his voice caught in his throat as he hissed, "Yeah, well, maybe I've got an important point to make."

As he'd done with so many human things before, Castiel took Dean's cue now and also retreated from their former physical proximity. He could have simply looked into Dean's mind and figured out what his charge wanted to discuss, but instead, he turned his eyes to the floor and muttered, "You wish that I'd never come to help you and Sam with this." It made about as much sense as any other possible explanation that came to mind.

Dean started to say something, but choked and dropped the thought after the first syllable. Shaking his head, he grunted, "Maybe I do, maybe I don't. Doesn't change the fact that you're here now, or that we're a team that needs to actually do things like a team—"

"Well, it is not for nothing, Dean…" Castiel raised his gaze, a scowl tugging at his lips, "but this hardly feels like a team to me."

"What the Hell are you talking about? Of course we're a team—"

"It seems to me that we are more you and Sam — a team, as you say — and your… interloping angelic sidekick." Swallowing, Castiel looked away from Dean again. He didn't know what this was — the way his eyes decided to water for no apparent reason, and the way that his chest wasn't bleeding when he was certain that this sensation was that of being stabbed.

"What — No! Cas, man, seriously!" Dean stormed back across the distance that had sprung up between them, only stopping short of "You're helping us, and that means you're on our team. Maybe I don't like it, but have you noticed that we might be screwed without you?"

"I see. So, you are merely tolerating my presence in order to achieve our common goal." Nodding, Castiel supposed that that made sense, all things considered, and he shouldn't have expected any less. "Very well — as long as I remain here, I am on your team, as you say. When I have served my purpose, I return to Heaven and let you be. Are you amenable to this?"

Dean flinched, and paused a moment. Words failed him as he locked his gaze with Castiel's. "...Who said that's what you had to do?"

Rolling his eyes, Castiel parroted, "'Maybe I don't like it' — this would seem to imply that you would prefer it if I didn't overstay my welcome. And besides, my family needs me. The more time I spend here, the likelier it is that Heaven will be unrecognizable upon my return."

Looking Cas up and down, Dean searched the angel's face for any sign that he didn't mean it. Maybe Cas wasn't the type to go ha ha, just kidding, but leaving again? And sosoon...? "Fine," Dean sighed, backing away from Cas again, hunching his shoulders, and firmly intending to stay as far away from the angel as possible. "You know what just... That's just fucking fine. We'll save the Virgin Nutcase and you can just fuck off and have fun cloud-hopping, see what I care."

Castiel watched Dean go and couldn't help but wonder how many times they'd been here before, in some motel room that might as well have been the same as all the others, having some variation or another of this exact talk, neither of them cutting to the point because either Heaven told Castiel not to or because Dean just wasn't like that. Leaving would be for the best, he tried to reassure himself, since Dean and he apparently couldn't spend two minutes together without something between them erupting, without one or both of them pushing the other away — even when, once again, life as they knew it was on the line. It wouldn't have burned him to go and touch Dean; Castiel knew that much. But touches, he remembered, could be misconstrued too easily, and there wasn't any point to arguing with the inevitable anyway — not even when Castiel's hands clenched into fists and itched to connect with Dean's jaw.

He turned his blue eyes to the floor and wished, for a moment, that he hadn't cleaned up the mess of dead demon. Carpet had no concept of entertaining spectators, and Castiel truly didn't appreciate the fact that he could hear everything around them — the ragged rise and fall of Dean's chest, the pounding of both their hearts, Gabriel muttering surprisingly sweet Enochian syllables to Sam — and looking up at Dean again did nothing to help the way Castiel felt like his entire chest might explode.

It didn't. Instead, he started speaking as though his mouth and his mind had decided to sever all ties: "Death was right about you, Dean, do you know that? And Famine. And Belial-otherwise-known-as-Meg, too, for that matter. You are one of the most arrogant, selfish, swaggering beings in all of my Father's Creation — and what has it gotten you?"

"A pain that goes from my head to my ass!" Dean gave up, and went to his leather jacket to try and find his flask. But Cas rushed in first, snatching it, returning to his previous position, and downing the contents before Dean's hand had even gotten to the pocket. "Fuck you, Cas! You can't just spring shit like that on a man and steal his fucking whiskey."

"You keep using that word," Castiel huffed. He lobbed the flash at Dean, narrowly missing his head. "And you know how I feel about it."

"Yeah, well, I thought I knew a lot of things about how you felt—"

"Besides, I need something in order to handle your presence much longer—"

"I mean, sure, you've got your magical angel language of love that inexplicably comes up during sex—"

"Especially if we are meant to function as a team—"

"But then you said some things. And I said some things. And everybody said everything—"

"Because, at this moment, the two of us can't seem to do anything without arguing—"

"And you... you bastard, you just had to say that you loved me—"

"Which is to say nothing of the fact that no matter what I do for you, you continue to disrespect me—"

"But then I needed you and you were just fucking gone—"

"I had a life before you, Dean! For millennia. I saw the Flood, I saw Sodom and Gomorrah razed to the ground—"

"And I was alone, man! I had Lisa, sure, and I had Ben, I had that whole... suburbia thing going—"

"Yet you continue acting as though my world ought to stop in order to solve your problems—"

"But Sam was in Hell, Cas! And you were off doing God only knows what—"

"And when I do help you, you always find some way to make me regret it—"

"And you know, maybe it's just me, but somehow, I just don't see me and that peaceful, respectable lifestyle working out in the long run—"

"I rebelled. I fell. I killed my brothers, I was hunted, and I gave up everything I'd ever known to save this world—"

"Of all the folks I've had my dick in before, I thought you understood me—"

"Because you convinced me that it was worth doing—"

"I thought you could put up with me—"

"Because I thought that it might be worthwhile to take a chance on the bond we were supposed to have—"

"I know that I'm not perfect, Cas, but you were supposed to mean it when you said, 'I love you'—"

"And when all the dust settled, my sacrifice was nothing more than a means to your end—"

"And maybe I'm just dumb as a brick, but I don't see how disappearing on me counts as love—"

"Did you never even once think about how Sam could get out of Hell!"

"So maybe you should get explaining or I..." Dean trailed off into gobsmacked silence, and for the first time since the flask had hit the wall, noticed his position. Somewhere in the flurry of their raised voices, he'd crossed back to Cas. Or Cas had crossed back to him. Or maybe they'd just charged at each other like rams butting heads, but Dean guessed it didn't really matter, since either way, they'd come within a dangerous distance of each other. As close together as they could be without throwing a punch or ripping off clothes. Dean just stared at Castiel, at the unfamiliar shade of red he'd turned his face and the way he panted like some dog on a hot day, how slowly his face came to register, in his same old tight-lipped resignation, exactly what he'd just shouted at Dean.

Swallowing thickly, Dean asked, "...You want to run that by me again?" Castiel's eyes darkened, and he shook his head. "No, seriously, Cas. You want. to run that by me. ...again?"

"It isn't important," Castiel hissed. Even as the rage emanating off him subsided, his cheeks flushed scarlet. Weaving around Dean, he started for the door. "I'll replace your whiskey—"

Catching Cas by the elbow, Dean pulled him back. He jerked Cas's shoulder, spun him around, said, "Don't you run off on me, you son of a bitch. ...Did you really bring Sam back?" Castiel nodded; his blush deepened, but his eyes never left Dean's. So many questions lingered on Dean's tongue, but the only use his lips found was colliding with Castiel's. Much to his surprise, Castiel reciprocated.

They stumbled to the bed and fell into it as though the distance hadn't ever come between them. Grunting, Dean nudged Castiel back up the mattress, tugged him by the tie to a sitting position; he kissed Castiel as gently as he could manage, but the fevered intensity behind each clashing of lips was that of a dehydrated pilgrim finding an oasis. They clashed — each set of lips fighting to find its place and claim some dominance over the other; here, Castiel bit Dean hard enough to make the hunter groan and swat him on the head; there, Dean held Castiel's lips in place so that he could drag the kiss out, slow it down and get everything out of it that he could.

Castiel didn't ignore the fingers worming into his hair, or the hand curling at his waist, but he focused the better part of his attentions on Dean's clothes. The two layers of shirt came off all too easily, revealing the expanse of warm, golden skin. Letting himself sink headlong into the kiss, Castiel closed his eyes, ran his hands down Dean's shoulders, his arms, his chest, his back and sides. They fell to the button of Dean's jeans in time for Dean to pull back, his breathing heavy. As it calmed, he moved Castiel's hand to his thigh and whispered, "Why'd you do it?"

Castiel didn't answer, just tore the button open and kissed Dean again, slower, the way Dean seemed to want it, but just as hard as they'd had before. He didn't bite, just let their lips collide. He handled undoing his own tie, and the pesky buttons; he shunted his own shirt off onto the bed, the motions near mechanical as he kept his mind on Dean's lips, on making sure they were so bruised he wouldn't even look at pie for weeks. Castiel wanted Dean to hurt every time he took a drink, and to think of the angel who could kiss like this as the beer or liquor went down his throat.

Dean, for his part, just tried to breathe in as much of Castiel's scent as he could manage — the wet, sticky feeling of his mouth; the lingering taste of the Black Jack; that guilty twinge that shot through him every time he ran his tongue along the angel's teeth. Their hips collided just as their lips did, and Castiel maneuvered underneath of Dean, wriggling around, grunting and rutting, thrusting his hips up into Dean's, bending his leg and grinding his knee into just the right spot on Dean's back, the spot where he always carried the most stress. Dean moaned as the initial rush of pain hit him, then subsided into relief. Castiel nudged their bodies backwards, so that he rested against the headboard, and snaking an arm around Dean's shoulders, he pulled his hunter down into the deepest kiss they'd had yet. Dean lost himself in it. He didn't even notice that Castiel had taken off his shirt until he felt something rough press into his chest.

He leaned back. The hand in Castiel's hair trailed down the back of the angel's neck, over his collarbone and came to rest on his chest, over a large scar in the shape of an angel-banishing sigil. Tracing his fingers over the bumps and the fading pink of its lines, Dean felt a shock blaze up his arm. He hesitated a moment, splayed his palm over the center of the marks. "Cas—" he started, only to have Castiel jerk his wrist down to his lap — and not without reason, Dean found. Castiel's dick was already hard, which was to say nothing of the erection Dean himself had straining against his jeans; Dean let one hand rest on Castiel's shoulder and handled their zippers. He curled his fingers in the waistbands of Castiel's briefs and trousers, fully intending to just yank them down and head into the action...

But Cas didn't let the kissing go that easily. His knuckles pressed into a tight muscle on the back of Dean's neck, urging him deeper. He kissed Dean deeply and waited until the oxygen was almost entirely gone from Dean's body before he separated them. Breathing into his charge's mouth, he said, "You were alone."

Dean hesitated, seeing stars. "...what?"

"You were alone," Castiel repeated, giving Dean a smaller kiss. "Without Sam. And you couldn't open up to Lisa, and I thought you..."

Dean nuzzled against Castiel's cheek, and then his neck. He kissed the pulse point over his angel's jugular, tenderly at first — and then biting, and sucking, just enough to leave a mark. "You thought...?" he whispered against the red spot, the one that would be an angry-looking hickey in the morning.

Castiel grabbed a handful of Dean's hair. "It's not important."

"You're thinking a lot of unimportant things these days, you know that? Is your head really in the game?"

Tugging, Castiel muttered, "I just couldn't leave you there like that."

Castiel reached for Dean's cock, only for Dean to bat his hand away. "No," Dean whispered. "Let me take care of you."

The angel thought of his and Dean's first night together, the love they'd shared on the motel bed before their tussle with Raphael. He nodded, and pulled Dean into another kiss.