Summer comes, and with it, hurricane season.
The blonde ass-bag on the news says this storm will be "one for the record books," and then uses the hackneyed phrase "hunker down" at least thirty-seven times in a half-hour broadcast. Dean watches the report on his laptop early on the morning of the storm, half-asleep under the quiet whir of his fan while Cas is gone to take his final for Early American Lit. It's one of the last classes held before campus closes down – 'hunkers down,' Dean thinks, trying to get into the spirit.
So naturally, Dean's response to all the hurricane hoopla is to run out and immediately stock up on a wide variety of liquor and lubricants, double-checking the condom supply in the bedside table.
By the time Cas comes in, a surly kitten soaked to the bone by the storm's outermost bands, Dean has his room illuminated with a dozen candles scavenged from the bar downstairs, champagne chilling in a silver bucket, and fresh sheets on the bed. Dean Martin is even crooning from the stereo. Dean hates it, of course, thinks it's schmaltzy and too rom-com-ish, but he knows it's one of Cas' favorites.
(Cas has never told him and Dean would never guess, but it's really just because they share a name. Cas feels like it's his duty to love anyone who has something in common with his Dean.)
Dean smiles, wide and enthusiastic. "Hurricane party, baby!"
Cas' only response is to grumble as water drips from his untucked shirttails. Dean laughs to himself and strides across the room, quickly peeling the wet layers off Cas' skin and replacing them with his warm mouth, kissing away the rain and trying to distract him from his hurricane fear.
"But Dean, they said we should evacuate," Cas protests, fingers wrapping around the short strands of Dean's soft hair and trying to tug him away from his neck.
"Only if we lived in a trailer or a low-lying area. This bar has been here forever, and we're on the second story." Dean's mouth travels lower, his tongue dipping into the hollow where Cas' collarbones meet before skipping down across his bare chest, brushing tantalizingly over his nipple.
"It's a category three," Cas manages to say, though he already lacks his earlier conviction.
"I've ridden out a half dozen of these." Dean's on his knees now, lips ghosting over the tiny hairs beneath Cas' navel as his nimble fingers whip open the belt buckle. "Just think of it as an excuse to enjoy the time off," he pops open the top button of Cas' jeans, "and the lack of distractions." He tugs the zipper down and Cas' jeans pool around his ankles, Dean finally quiet as he finds better things to do with his mouth.
Cas threads his fingers through Dean's hair, tugging at the roots and groaning as Dean licks a long line on the underside of his shaft, his eyes bright and locked on Cas' as he reaches the tip and wraps his lips around him. Cas is already rock hard and Dean hums with the small pleasure of knowing that he's good at this, that his lips were made to be a tight ring of wet around Cas, his cheeks slightly concave as he sucks, drawing his mouth back to swirl his tongue around the head.
But then it all goes sideways as Cas uses his last coherent thought before the sex haze grows overwhelming to tug impatiently at Dean's shoulder, hauling him back up to eye level.
"If you're going to insist on making me endanger my life by staying here, you're going to make it worth it."
Dean licks his already-wet lips and smirks. "I thought that's what I was doing, Cas."
But Cas has that burning in his blue eyes, like they're lit from within by some sort of holy fire, and Dean's seen that look enough times to know that Cas has something in mind that Dean will not be able to refuse.
"No, I mean really worth it."
Cas pushes Dean down on the bed and crawls on top of him, his hands making quick work of Dean's shirt buttons. He's stripping Dean's clothes off like their naked flesh will somehow stop the storm, like heat and sex and love are enough to affect weather patterns.
And then their clothes are in a haphazard pile on the floor, the candlelight dancing over their golden summer skin, already damp with sweat in the humid room. Legs tangled together, Cas kisses Dean fiercely as his hand circles to Dean's ass, a finger running along the cleft, pressing and stroking suggestively until Dean finally catches on. He pulls back and stares, stunned, the mask of confidence totally gone from those green eyes.
He's silent for a long time, trying to think of some quip, something clever to hide behind, but he can't. All he's got is raw honesty.
"I'm scared, Cas."
Cas' eyes are dark, the pupils having nearly swallowed the blue. Like he's a fathomless canyon that Dean will fall through forever if he's not careful.
"Don't be. I love you. If we try this and you don't enjoy it, we will stop. Immediately."
They've had sex before, of course, but it's always been a version of it where Dean is on his knees behind Cas, their bodies curved together as Dean pushes inside. That was somewhat within the realm of his experience - being the one in the driver's seat, so to speak.
And Dean has to admit to himself that he's been curious, at least a little, since the first time he saw himself sliding into Cas' body and heard that groan of satisfaction, saw the trembling in his shoulders as the sensation racked him. A part of Dean has wanted to know what that feels like, if it's painful or terrifying or incredible, or some combination of the above.
But mostly it freaks him out, being such a different act from anything he's ever done or ever thought he would do. Then Cas' finger presses across his perineum and travels north to his – well, Dean doesn't know any better word for it than 'hole' – and he feels Cas' fingertip dip inside and gasps.
"Trust me, Dean. I would never hurt you."
Dean knows with that husky promise that he's going to do this, and a thrill zings along the length of his spine, his breath catching in his chest. He tries to play it off with a laugh.
"So should we have some kind of safe word or something? I yell 'petunia' when I can't take it anymore or..."
Cas shakes his head, presses his lips to Dean's temple. "It's just us, Dean. You can just ask me to stop."
Dean nods and swallows, lacing his fingers through Cas' and squeezing. "Okay."
Cas takes control, pinning Dean's wrists to the bed as he covers every inch of his chest with wet kisses, working his way south with excruciating slowness. He swipes his tongue over Dean's nipples, leaving trails of hot wet that he blows across until Dean shivers, and dances his fingertips across the ridges of muscle in Dean's stomach. His teeth graze over Dean's hipbone, his tongue tracing down the hard line that runs from there to the base of Dean's cock. Everything about Cas is gentle, every touch oh-so-light as he kisses the insides of Dean's thighs and gently massages his balls, his long fingers soft and teasing... until he locks eyes with Dean and smirks.
And then Dean's head is slamming back into the pillow, Cas suddenly ferocious as he wraps a firm hand and hot mouth around Dean, pumping and sucking and groaning and making these obscene wet sounds until he's got Dean so tense with anticipation that he's trembling under Cas' hands.
And this is all completely new; lying here vulnerable as he's spread open before Cas, with Cas' mouth seemingly everywhere as his hand slides beneath him and touches parts of Dean he hasn't even explored himself. It's Cas' fingers, cool and slick with lube, that begin sliding in and out of Dean's body, shallow and slow at first and then sinking deeper, gliding every now and then over something buried within Dean that feels like he's setting fire to his body from the inside out in the best possible way.
Cas' free hand never stops running over Dean and he's murmuring soft declarations of love, soothing as if Dean is an animal frightened by the coming storm, and it's working. Dean finds himself getting into this, the tension leaving his muscles under Cas' skillful touch. He knows how to provide the perfect mix of pleasure to make the pain bearable and Dean realizes with surprise that Cas is good at this - better, more patient than Dean – making it feel intimate and intense and incredible. It makes Dean wonder how many times he has done this before, how many other men he's had under those hands.
Other couples would know these things about each other by the time they reached this point; they would have had the awkward but necessary conversation about previous partners and experiences, but it's a subject Dean and Cas have deftly avoided. Probably because it veers too closely to questions about Dean's sexuality, which he still stubbornly defines as equal to straight (+Cas). So Castiel doesn't ask and Dean doesn't tell because they both know that he can't face looking at the subject straight on; he can only handle those thoughts if they're side-lit, half in shadows.
Then Cas drags his tongue, hot and flat, across the tip of Dean's cock as he eases in a third finger, and the sensation is so overwhelming that Dean's not able to think about anything other than the way Cas is taking complete control of his body.
His fingers are working in and out of Dean with ease now, feeling the muscles clench and relax as he pumps his free hand and mouth over Dean's cock in pace with the fingers fucking inside him. Dean can't decide if it's too much or not enough, every nerve on fire and taut as piano wire.
"How do you feel?" Cas sounds even huskier than usual, his voice muffled by Dean's hot skin.
Dean can't even open his eyes, the words grinding out before his brain gives them permission.
"Like if you don't fuck me soon, I'm going to spontaneously combust."
Cas chuckles, happy and gratified. He needed Dean to reach this point, to beg for it. Smoothly, he sits up and reaches for a condom and more lube, slicking every centimeter of flesh and rubber that will be pressed together. Dean takes the momentary break to try to pull himself together, rubbing across his eyes and tugging at his hair, looking down the long line of his body to the V of his raised legs, Cas on his knees between them.
They lock eyes when Cas slowly begins pushing his length into Dean. He moves incredibly slowly, reading every tiny twitch of Dean's face to tell him when to stop, when to move further, when to kiss at the inside of his knee and murmur soothing words of love.
And then he's there, wrapped in Dean's warmth with his tanned flesh under his hands, trusting him to be in control, and Cas has to screw his eyes shut, his chin dropping onto his chest for a long moment to make sure that he doesn't come right then and ruin everything.
So now it's Dean's turn to whisper to Cas, his fingers tugging at his shoulders as he pulls Cas down to him – and, holy fuck, the angle is too piercing, too intense like this, but he decides it's worth it for a second – as he tries to articulate how overwhelmed and happy he feels, how much he wants this.
Cas blinks, his eyelashes like velvet dragging over Dean's oversensitive skin, and rocks back onto his knees before he begins to move, thick and wet and sharper than anything Dean's felt before. His neck bows as Cas' pace slowly climbs and Dean groans, animalistic and wild, his calloused fingertips pressing into the hard muscles of Cas' sides and urging him on.
"Cas, God, I didn't know-" he loses his breath and his grip on Cas, dragging his hands over his face as the sensation overwhelms him for a moment. "It's so intense, how do you-"
Whatever he was going to say is lost as Cas wraps his arms under Dean's thighs and shifts his angle, just a fraction, but suddenly he's found exactly the right spot. The last trace of discomfort disappears from Dean's brow, his eyes now frantic and wide, unblinking as they focus on Cas'. He can't speak anymore, at least not beyond the devout chants of Cas' name that seem to fall from his lips without his knowledge.
All Cas feels is Dean's tense body, a taut line of muscle that mirrors the tension building low and hot in his own, and the sweat that's slicking both their skin. "Dean," he breathes, wrapping a hand around Dean's hard cock and pumping hot and tight. "Oh, God, Dean." His hand flies, furiously fast as he feels Dean begin to spiral out of control. And then Dean is crying out and coming, his eyes rolling back as he paints both their bodies in thick white stripes.
That sight, Dean boneless and trembling beneath him, and the wet streak on his stomach that means that Dean enjoyed this, that he wants Cas there inside him, are enough to send Cas flying over the edge himself, buried to the hilt inside Dean's hot, clenching body. He trembles over Dean, groaning and slipping out before his thighs give out and he falls forward, buying his face in the bend of Dean's neck, his breath gasping and panting across the damp skin.
For a long minute, as the aftershocks twitch through both of them, Cas just lies there and lets Dean's shaking fingers card through the sweat-soaked strands on his neck. He's overwhelmed with gratitude and joy, so filled with it that he can barely breathe. They've got trust and love and laughter and pleasure, so much more than either of them thought they'd ever find, and it's all wrapped up right here in this tiny bed, in the words they haven't bothered to say because they're written in the salty sheen of each other's bodies.
Cas can feel his eyes grow wet at the thought.
He blinks, carefully, with his face twisting away since he knows nothing will make Dean feel weirder than knowing he nearly cried after sex. And then he eases out of Dean's arms and rolls onto his back, pulling off the condom and reaching for the towel they've started keeping strategically next to the bed. Dean, oversensitive, shakes as Cas cleans them both up, his hands reverent and soft, their faces flushed as their eyes keep flitting away from one another, both a little suspiciously shining.
Cas lies back down and they don't speak for a long time, their bodies twisted together in the dark, humid room as they listen to the howl of the wind through the loose window casings and the staccato lash of rain at the glass.
An hour later, when the storm is raging at its peak and the candles have burned down low enough to start guttering in lakes of their own melted wax, Dean and Cas stand at the window (which, despite all his posturing, Dean has protectively covered in a large X of tape) and watch the pop and flare of transformers blowing in the dark.
It's like fireworks, the flashes of light giving them tiny glimpses into the storm's fury: Palm trees bent down nearly to the ground, tree limbs scattered across the cracked pavement of the bar's parking lot, Spanish moss carried on the wind like tumbleweeds. Then their power sputters out too, the stereo silencing and leaving only the sounds of the storm, the floorboards creaking under their weight, and their own breath, deep and even. Dean slips his hand into Cas' and squeezes, and Cas finds that's he's not scared anymore.
Not at all.
The storm ends around midnight and they get dressed, filled with morbid curiosity to see how the world has changed. They prowl around the bar in the dark, finding a small leak in Ellen's back office that Dean puts a garbage can under. Other than that, Harvelle's seems fine.
So they step outside, standing in the dark parking lot for a long moment, looking toward a neon sign in the distance. It's the only place in sight that has power – thanks to a generator, Dean assumes – and they pick their way across the debris as they walk toward it like moths drawn in by the light.
"Jackie Chen's? Seriously, that's what's open? Who goes out in a hurricane to make General Tso's Chicken?"
"I don't know." Cas smiles, sly and hungry. "But I know who goes out in one to eat it."
"Us?"
"Us."
And sure enough, fifteen minutes later they've got white Styrofoam containers stuffed with questionable meats in weird sauces with sides of fried carbohydrates and and crunchy cookies filled with lucky lotto numbers. Dean carries the food in his right hand so he can hold onto Cas with his left, helping him find safe footing around the litter of leaves and limbs and garbage.
Cas opens the door for him when they get back to Harvelle's, leaning in to whisper something obscene about egg rolls as Dean walks by. He chuckles, and then shrieks as they're blinded by a flashlight aimed straight at their faces.
The light moves away as fast as it came, both of them blinking against the bright spots dancing across their vision.
"Sorry, guys. You scared me."
Dean recognizes the voice before the light catches the ends of the long blonde hair of the person holding it, so he pulls away from Cas, smooth and cool as water, like he has a hundred times before.
"Hey, Jo. You come in to check on the place?"
"Yeah. I would've just called you but the lines are down." In the shadows cast by the flashlight, they can see Jo's face twist in curiosity. "What are you guys doing?"
Dean shrugs and walks toward her. "It's Cas' first hurricane, I just wanted to make sure the little guy made it through okay. And did you know that Jackie Chen's is open?"
He keeps talking about Chinese food and the storm until he reaches Jo, taking her by the elbow and leading her back to Ellen's office to show her the tiny bit of damage the bar sustained. Cas stands alone in the dark entryway for a long moment, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth to bite back a sigh, or maybe it's a petulant cry for Dean to quit disavowing him in public.
At first Cas didn't really mind – he was just so happy to be in a relationship with Dean that it didn't matter if anyone else knew about it or not. Besides, Dean swore that he didn't really have a problem being with another man.
"It's just everybody else, Cas. You've seen how those guys at the bar can be, not to mention the idiotic frat boys at school. I don't want to make you a target or too uncomfortable to be able to hang out with me at work."
And Cas accepted it. He knew he was the only one in Dean's life; he knew that they really loved each other. So he let it go every time that Dean strategically sneaked Cas up to his room when the bar was so packed that no one would notice, or when he always had some excuse to get them back out of there before Ellen came in to open every afternoon. And he didn't say anything about the homophobic jokes the guys at the bar would tell that Dean would chuckle along with, or the way he wouldn't hold Cas' hand when they rode around in the Impala.
"This thing doesn't have power steering, Cas. I gotta keep both hands on the wheel."
But like any small irritant, it's grown exponentially larger where it rubs, leaving Cas' heart raw and sore every time Dean pulls away. He still tells himself that it doesn't matter, not in the grand scheme of things. He has Dean in every way that really counts.
So he focuses on the memory of Dean, groaning and open and alive under his hands only a few hours ago. He relives it in every detail until it chases back the nagging sense of shame, the thought that they're running on borrowed time.
And it comes so close to working that Cas decides to believe that it actually does.