Sorry, I waited a bit to upload, been busy.
Who's seen 11x18? Wow. Just wow. In Destiel heaven right now. I'm still very cynical about it becoming canon but I want to hope soooo badly. If they weren't both male-presenting then 'Hell's Angel' would have been universally accepted as full of romantic tension but nooooo. Anyway, I'm bitter and I lack faith in the writers and maybe I'll be proven wrong and we'll get the conclusion to this love story that we deserve.
This chapter is a tad cliched with the whole shaving thing but whatever, I had fun writing it so I hope you have fun reading it too :)

The rest of the day ends up being very enjoyable and it's easy to forget that Ezekiel is there with the three of us. After breakfast I go to brush my teeth and Dean walks in on me as I'm leaning close to the mirror, examining my stubble with a frown. It's fast developing into a beard, and I don't want a beard.

I grew a beard in Purgatory because my grace worked differently there, as though it was a battery rather than a constant power source. Every use of it sapped my strength for a short while and I wanted to conserve it. So I consciously withdrew it from all the things it usually maintained and fixed automatically, such as keeping my skin clean and my clothes repaired, and stopping my hair from growing. Purgatory didn't seem to follow the same rules of life as the mortal world. Even without my grace, my sweat didn't go sour and my teeth didn't build up plaque. My companions were similarly unaffected. As well as this, Dean found that he felt neither thirst nor hunger, and Benny had no need of blood to sustain him. It was an odd place and I found the beard to be an odd experience. I was quite glad to get rid of it once my grace was back to normal.

Now, peering at the scrobiculate beginnings of another beard on my jawline, I'm annoyed at the prospect. Dean steps up beside me and smiles. "Do you know how to shave?"

I turn to him and shake my head. I know that Dean is lucky and his facial hair grows slowly; he told me as much in Purgatory, when I watched him carefully scraping a small knife across his wet face every few days. He hardly ever cut himself, but he told me that it was due to a sharp blade and lots of practice. He said he'd never once had a beard or moustache in his life, and he never wanted to.

Looking at him, I can see that he has a little bit of stubble, but not as much as me. It actually looks very pleasing on him. I compare my own face in the mirror. The rough layer of stubble is thicker and darker than his, but it's not aesthetically displeasing either. In fact, for the first time ever, I can appreciate that I'm not a bad looking man. Now that it's my own human body rather than just a vessel, that seems to matter more. My dark hair is artfully mussed and soft-looking, the almost black colour providing a sharp contrast to eyes as startling blue as Dean's are green. Really, the stubble looks damn good on me. In a few days it will be actual hair, though. I scrape at it with my fingers and Dean laughs softly.

"Yeah, you look better without the beard for sure. I'll help you out."

I nod gratefully. Dean directs me to wash my face clean, watching me splash water onto my skin with an amused expression. I add soap and scrub thoroughly before rinsing and then toweling my face dry.

"Gotta have a clean face for shaving," he informs me. I nod seriously.

He grabs a damp washcloth hanging by the sink and runs the hot tap, soaking the cloth with hot water and then laying it aside. He half-fills the basin with cold water, then takes a small bottle and shakes some sort of golden substance onto my fingers.

"Shaving oil," he tells me, motioning for me to pat it lightly onto my jaw. "Softens the skin."

I hesitantly brush my fingers across my cheeks and chin and he bites his lip, clearly struggling with himself. Sighing, he avoids my eyes as he puts shaving oil onto his own fingers and rubs it into my skin using quick, firm movements. I close my eyes and hum in surprised enjoyment. His fingers are a little rough but the oil quickly makes them soft. It smells faintly pleasant and it feels irrationally good to have him touch me. He takes his hands away too quickly and my eyes flutter open, watching him busy himself at the sink with his stubbled cheeks flushed.

He takes the hot washcloth from the counter and presses it to my face. When he speaks his voice is light and warm. "Need to heat the skin, opens the pores. You keeping up?"

I nod into the pleasant warmth of the damp cloth, happy to have an excuse to let my eyes wander over the details of his face. I don't think he noticed my shocked expression or my intense staring when he picked me up from that bus shelter, and I don't think he's realised that I can see him properly for the first time. More than likely, he never actually knew that I was only ever seeing him through the glow of his soul when I was an angel. It's not like I couldn't see his physical form, it was just overshadowed by something more beautiful and more familiar to me.

But now, as a human, all I can see is another human. When I viewed him for the first time this way, I was slightly bewildered to be looking at the physical shell of this man I loved, without the nuances and fluctuations of his soul enriching his appearance. It was a good hour before I stopped staring at his profile in the car. I eventually decided that it was actually nice to be able to see his face and body clearly, since it was really a very pleasing sight. Now, looking at the expressions flickering across his eyes, I almost feel like I can still see his soul after all.

He glances at me and I blink, realising that my gaze was probably getting a little heavy. My voice is muffled when I speak. "It's quite an involved process."

Dean continues to pat at my face with the cloth. He shrugs, eyes sparkling. "Beauty comes at a price, my friend. You have to put the work in to look this good."

I nod solemnly again and Dean snorts as he lays the cloth down. He proceeds to pick up a small dish and squirts white foam into it from a metal container. Grabbing a neat little brush, he rubs the foam into a lather in the bowl. Offering me the brush, he explains that I need to cover all of the stubble with the foam and rub it in thoroughly using circular motions. I do so, peering into the mirror. When I've covered my whole lower face and neck in the smooth white substance, he grins at me in the mirror.

"Once you look like Santa, it's time to actually shave. It's important to be careful and shave with the grain as much as possible, so you don't cut yourself, yeah?"

"Yes, I understand."

Dean talks me through it as I firmly drag the razor across my skin, taking away strips of lather and revealing smooth, clean flesh beneath it. He instructs me to rinse the implement in the sink regularly. All is going well until I'm attending to the jut of bone beneath my ear. I go for the wrong angle and the blade catches; I wince sharply and swear under my breath as a bead of blood wells up. I twist my mouth apologetically.

"Sorry, Dean."

"No, don't apologise..." He trails off and, without seeming to realise what he's doing, he steps close and gently swipes the blood away with his thumb. I turn my head and meet his eyes and there's the usual thick silence for a few seconds. I'm so used to it now; it's become an almost comfortable part of my relationship with Dean. He's nearly always the first to look away, fumbling and clearing his throat.

But this time, it seems to hit me differently. Instead of remaining calm, I quickly feel flustered and confused by the physical proximity and the sharp scent of the shaving foam and after about two seconds, the intensity of the eye contact is starting to feel unbearable. But I can't seem to remember how to tear my gaze away. The green of Dean's eyes is making me dizzy and I'm holding my breath. My skin is prickling unpleasantly and I feel overheated. It's bizarre. With a huge effort and an immediate sense of relief, I wrench my eyes down to the counter top and stare blankly, inhaling with a rush. Is this how Dean feels when we have those little moments? No wonder they make him so uncomfortable. Suddenly, his personal space rule makes more sense to me.

Dean steps back and clears his throat, a familiar sound, and it makes me smile a little. I take a deep breath and resume shaving. There's silence for a little while until I get to my upper lip and he explains that it's best to pull the skin tight and flat because it's easier to cut oneself on the moustache area. I murmur agreement, doing as he says, and then move across to the other side of my face. He then directs me to shave my neck using long, broad strokes, being very careful on the sharp edge of my jawbone.

I wash the razor off once more and he empties the sink and then runs the tap warm, telling me to rinse my face thoroughly before patting it dry with the towel. He tells me to check for any patches I've missed, running his fingers softly across his own face to demonstrate. I do so but I wish I was touching his skin instead. It takes much more effort than it used to, stopping myself from touching Dean. I force myself to focus as he points out a spot near my pulse point which still has some practically invisible stubble and I tilt my head as he spreads some more shaving cream onto the spot and meticulously shaves it bare. I hope that he can't feel how my pulse is jumping erratically from the attention.

"You enjoy shaving," I observe as he uses the damp washcloth to wipe the last of the lather off my neck. He grins at me as he grabs a different bottle from the counter top and unscrews the cap. A familiar smell wafts towards me; my sense of smell as an angel was clearly more similar to a human's, unlike my sense of taste. The scent is altered, stronger and smoother and less detailed, but unmistakable.

"That smells like you," I tell him, smiling at the bottle. His grins turns oddly shy and he chuckles a little, cocking his head.

"You recognise my aftershave?"

"Is that what it is?" I reach out and take the bottle, inhaling. "You don't always smell like this, but you do quite regularly."

Dean shrugs, his ears pink, but he looks pleased. "Well, I'd smell like that on the days I've shaved, I guess. I don't shave every morning. But you're right, yeah, I like to shave. It's kind of a ritual, I like going through all the steps."

He pours a little of the aftershave onto my fingers and tells me to apply it like the oil. I rub it into my skin using little circular motions, closing my eyes to enjoy the scent and the feel. I jump and open them again as Dean dabs at my cut with the corner of the washcloth, rubbing the now-dried blood off. "Only one cut! Nice job."

He grins at me and holds up his hand for a hi-five, which I grant him with raised brows and a smirk. I suddenly remember that I have a mirror to check my reflection, and I do so, mildly pleased to see my familiar clean-shaven face there. As an angel I never saw my own grace in the mirror because mirrors generally only reflect the physical world. The face of Jimmy Novak was the only face I ever really saw as just a face, although I didn't look into mirrors very often. Next to me, Dean is humming lightly as he cleans the razor, brush and bowl. I watch him fondly, absently rubbing the newly soft skin on my cheek. He shakes the equipment and then lays it out to dry on the counter, looking up and catching my eye. His gaze travels over the Metallica t shirt I'm wearing and he tilts his head.

"Not that I mind you borrowing my shirt," he says with a smile. "But we should probably go buy you some new clothes."