This is the springtime of my loving
The second season I am to know
You are the sunlight in my growing
So little warmth I've felt before.
It isn't hard to feel me glowing
I watched the fire that grew so low.
- "Rain Song," Led Zeppelin
It is 5:45 in the morning on a Monday, and Castiel Novak is in love.
Getting back to sleep after his entirely useless work alarm is unlikely, given this waking realization. He's pretty sure the only feasible way to process this development is the consumption of vast quantities of coffee and a great deal of 'brooding.'
Dean growls incomprehensibly at Cas's phone for interrupting their hard-earned slumber, staggers to the bathroom, uses the facilities, stumbles back to the bed and plants himself face-first and naked atop the sheets. He immediately drifts back to sleep with one arm thrown negligently around Castiel, fingers curled into his skin, head turned toward him on the pillow, and he begins snoring again softly within moments.
The fact that every aspect of this zombie-like behavior is endearing and fascinating is clear evidence of his earlier conclusion.
Castiel presses a kiss to Dean's forehead before slipping out of the bed.
xXx
It's 6:25 in the morning, Castiel has downed two cups of coffee, and he's still in love.
One would assume this realization would be warming, heartening, but the truth of the matter is that he's managed to make himself anxious. There are a dozen reasons why being in love with Dean, particularly after less than a week's acquaintance, is a bad idea. Castiel is however quite certain of the fact that love isn't an idea, it's a feeling, and therefore not ruled by rationality.
He has inextricably emotionally tied himself to Dean, and whatever his rational mind would tell him about the wisdom of that course of action, he's already there. He was already there last night, when they came home from the jail, Dean stripped him down and refused to allow him pajamas (you wore them all frikkin' day, man). They tumbled into the bed, too tired and drained after the day to do more than curl into each other to sleep, and Castiel was shaken enough by everything that had happened that he was content to just try and pull Dean as close as he could and hold him.
He was already there yesterday, when Dean texted to say he had no idea what they were doing. Neither does Castiel, still, but he knows what he wants. He just doesn't know if he gets to have it now that everything he wants is right in front of him.
He was probably already in love before that, but he can't claim this kind of certainty then. He is however fairly sure, as he stands in the doorway to his own bedroom watching Dean sleep, that he's looking at the man who is going to break his heart.
So he goes to forage breakfast for them.
xXx
The day has dawned bright and clear in the wake of yesterday's storms, and the sunlight seems to cling to Dean's skin, to paint gold and bronze highlights through the longer strands of Dean's hair, and to soften his features. When Dean is asleep, all of the pain he carries with him the rest of the time melts away. Awake, Dean Winchester is an undeniably handsome man, and the lines of worry and suspicious crease of his eyes somehow enhance that. Asleep, though, all of that is gone, leaving him devastatingly beautiful.
Dean would call him creepy for staring. Castiel's not sure how he's expected not to.
At some point during his medical career, Castiel had managed to acquire a tray. He's not exactly certain how that happened: probably he walked out engrossed in a book and with no idea what he was carrying, though one would expect he got looks on the bus carrying a tray. It's one of life's small mysteries. The fact that Castiel is dawdling and contemplating the origins and backstory of a tray in his own kitchen is more pertinent, because it means he's still not sure what he's doing.
Orange juice. Bottled water. Breakfast. Coffee. Hand towel. Silverware. Neatly placed on the purloined tray. He's stalling, watching the clock hit seven, because seven is a reasonable hour, because seven means he wasn't too eager for Dean to join him in the land of the living.
He makes it to 6:56.
xXx
Hands glide over Dean's skin, gentle over the bruises and more a caress than an actual massage, lips grazing the minor injuries as if a kiss could take away the pain as his mother claimed once when he was three and skinned his knees.
It's a good memory. And this is a very good way to wake up.
Dean hums a greeting sleepily into the pillow beneath him, and Castiel presses a kiss to the back of his neck in response, open-mouthed and gentle, hands smoothing down his arms from his shoulders, and it takes Dean a second to realize he's been gently pinned to the bed by Cas's weight.
He tenses almost immediately, eyes snapping open, and Cas shakes his head and drags his palms back up Dean's arms again, sweeping them down the line of his back. His murmur against Dean's skin seems to blend into the moment, a low drag, velvet rubbed the wrong way. "You're safe, Dean."
Trust me, it asks, hopeful and soothing, and Dean tries to make himself melt back into the bedding, but there is an Alpha pinning him face first into the bed and. . .
Castiel kisses between his shoulder blades, down his back, following the path his hands blazed first. Dean's legs are weighed down to the bed, Castiel draped over him, and now that he's awake he wants to roll over, to drop Castiel down beside him on the bed so that he's not under so much scrutiny, anything to get away from this focused attention.
"I watched you sleep." Castiel confesses into the skin of his back as hands cup his sides, sliding down over his bruised ribs with just enough pressure not to tickle the sensitive skin. "You look gorgeous and vulnerable that way." Dean twitches, and Castiel chases the movement across his muscles with his fingertips, easing it away. "I know you don't like that."
"Y'think?" Dean grumbles. "Gee, wonder why I wouldn't want to be weak around everyone."
"There's a difference between weakness and vulnerability, Dean." Castiel is moving down him slowly and Dean tenses again, expecting the obvious destination. He doesn't mind, per say, and he had made the offer of sex yesterday before the arrest and meant it, but waking up pinned and fucked... it's too close to everything he bottles up.
Castiel presses a kiss to the dip of his back, palms sliding warm and firm now down the defined muscles of his ass, and Dean realizes he's holding his breath, waiting for Cas to spread him open, to take. Instead, the hands keep sliding, down the bow of his legs, over the backs of his knees, and finally Cas is kneeling at his feet, hands massaging down the backs of his calves before thumbs press into the arches of his feet.
"I don't think I could ever see you as weak. You're one of the strongest people I've met." Dean snorts, dismissive, and Castiel stills behind him for a moment, and then unfolds, the solid line of him pressing Dean shoulders to toes into the bed again, his words a displeased rumble that Dean can feel move through him, like this, trapped beneath Castiel. "Do you always argue any compliment you're given, Dean?"
"Depends on the compliment. And who's giving it." Dean's abortive shrug beneath Castiel ends in hands grabbing his shoulders, a shift of weight, and now he's turned over to face Castiel from inches away, caged beneath him by Cas's arms. He should be more comfortable this way, no longer ass-up and face-down, but the blue eyes fixed on him are intense, too shrewd, too focused.
"You don't believe me. Why?"
Because if Cas knew better, he wouldn't want Dean. Because he's naive and idealistic enough to believe in God as some sort of benevolent Santa Claus to the world, and professionally looks for the best in people. Because the chemicals between them hit the Alpha hard the second they met, staring across the bar then shell shocked at the hospital. Because he's compromised himself for Dean, and he shouldn't have. Because he has been broken completely and ruined and not strong at all. Because Dean's just a used up Omega who...
Castiel's face crumples as he watches Dean in silence, his eyes scrunching closed, and he touches his fingertips to Dean's face gently. "I hate that they've done this to you."
He doesn't grant Dean the time to question that. Pressing his lips to Dean's forehead, he traces his fingers along Dean's hairline, then cards them through his hair, nails lightly scratching over his scalp. "You're beautiful."
Dean's heard that one before. Usually with a sneer. Pretty little bitch.
Fingers tug at his hair gently, and he's used to that with more force, but he accepts the kiss for the chance to shut Cas up for a moment. Cas seems to be trying to communicate something in the kiss, though, and maybe he always has been. It's never just been about the skill of his tongue and lips, it's been about the intensity, the honesty of it. "I love your mouth." He breathes the words into the hot cave of it, tongue dipping in to taste him again. Dean's heard all about his cocksucking lips, too, though.
Dean's hands against Cas's shoulders are captured gently in Cas's own, and he sits up, straddling Dean's hips and presses a kiss to each palm, and then laces their fingers together, bending to lay his head against Dean's chest and stretching their clasped hands out to either side of them on the bed. He's trapping Dean to the bed, but linking them together, restraining himself there as well. He mouths a kiss over Dean's heart, pulse strong beneath his lips, like he can somehow ease the scars on a battered soul, not just the bruises on an injured body. "Trust me for now, Dean. Please."
I'll never hurt you, Castiel promised in the car before he came here, a hand to Dean's face, and that is not a promise he can really keep. Because there's a lot of ways to hurt someone, and Dean learned from an expert that its not the physical pain that cuts the deepest, leaves the most devastating scars.
Closing his eyes, Dean clenches his jaw, brow furrowing, and reminds himself to breathe, slow and deep and controlled. Cas doesn't deserve the shit Dean brings with him, but Dean's just selfish enough that he doesn't want Cas to stop this. "Yeah. Okay, Cas... okay."
He forces himself to relax beneath Cas, and is rewarded with a smile, with another kiss to his chest that slides sideways, then, gently mouthing over his nipple, tongue flicking it experimentally. And that... yeah, that's good. He can definitely get behind that. Castiel takes his time, leaving their hands clasped together and mapping Dean's body with his mouth alone, teasing his nipples between teeth and tongue and then laying wet, open mouthed kisses against him, whispering compliments and praise into his flesh until Dean is writhing impatiently beneath him, ready to flip them over and get things started already.
Figures he got the only Alpha virgin in the world who could tune out a willing Omega trying to get him to fuck him already. "Cas..."
Castiel dips his tongue into Dean's navel briefly, trails the pointed tip down his stomach to the straining erection jutting insistently before him, and presses a kiss to the head, parting his lips around it just enough for Dean to feel the wet caress of his tongue. And then he looks up, a gaze that would be innocent to match his voice if his eyes weren't lust-darkened and heavy-lidded. "Yes, Dean?"
Dean's fingers tighten, his hands tight in Cas's grip; he brings his leg up to trap Castiel and flips them abruptly, taking their linked hands to pin Castiel's above his head. "Done teasing."
Castiel lays back against the pillows contently, shaking his head, and offers Dean a slight smile. "I told you. . ." Despite himself when Dean settles over him, he gives a shallow thrust of his hips that slides his cock along the crease of Dean's ass, the glide made easy by the slick of Dean's arousal. ". . . I don't tease."
This wasn't about winding Dean up. It wasn't about trying to make him squirm, make him needy; though there's a decidedly Alpha, masculine, nearly savage pleasure at knowing he has. Castiel wants to erase the hateful words he heard last night from Dean's memory. He wants to wrap his affection around Dean's heart and protect him from the scum like the men in the jail that threatened his mate, hurt him with their words and their crudeness, whether Dean wishes to admit it or not. He wants Dean as far gone from his past as he can get him, solidly in the present... with him. "Teasing means I wouldn't give you anything you want, Dean."
Arching up, he steals a kiss from Dean, and he braces his feet into the mattress again, rocking Dean forward and down to him. "What do you want, Dean?"
The quiet, broken sound that falls from Dean's lips is beautiful, perfect, the only way Castiel wants Dean to be wrecked ever again. And he did that, he brought him to that point. Dean snatches both of Cas's wrists in a one-handed grip, braces a palm against his chest and raises himself up abruptly, and in one sudden, smooth glide Castiel is there.
Castiel's entire body bows beneath Dean, head falling back, lips slack, eyes slamming shut, and dear God in heaven why did he wait so long? Dean's name is a broken moan, a prayer, a plea, and he can hear Dean react to it, but he can feel it too, Dean's filthy chuckle seems to tighten and flutter the wet heat around him. Dean's going to say something, going to tease or quip or banter and ignore the fact that he just completely and utterly changed Castiel's life and branded himself forever in this moment, and Cas won't let him, can't allow him to cheapen what this means to him. Surging up against Dean, Castiel fucks his hips upwards sharply to stop him, wrenches his hands free from Dean's grip, tangles his fingers into his mate's hair, and kisses him rough and bruising.
Dean tightens around him like a fist, and as good as it feels, as much as he wants to fuck him hard, knot him, pump him full and drive a claim into him with his seed and his teeth, mark him so he'll always remember, so that he will belong to him, Castiel has just enough presence of mind to know he won't, he can't...
He cannot allow himself to become just another Alpha to use Dean that way.
"Please..." He doesn't even know what he's asking for, now, as their lips part and he falls back against the pillows, forcing himself to stillness, his hands moving to frame the sharp line of Dean's hips, buried deep inside of his mate and rigid because he doesn't have the strength to be gentle if he starts to move. "Dean, please..."
Dean is beautiful this way, rising above him, hands planted on Castiel's chest, bare to the sunlight and Castiel's heated gaze. He's a god like this, some savage pagan creature with eyes like summer, that know everything, see everything, and Dean may be the one on his knees, but Castiel wants to worship him, give himself as an offering. Whatever it is that Dean sees in his face, in his willing submission, it pleases him. . . he strokes his hands comfortingly down Cas's sides and bends down to kiss him again, softer, gentling his desperation.
They'll have time, all the time in the world if Castiel has his way, for Dean to start to truly trust him. For him to be able to give in to those baser instincts. In three days Dean's heat will drive them both, strip away their last shreds of control. For now, Castiel wants Dean to have him, to show him how to be good for Dean. With the kiss and the comforting words, Dean begins to ride him slowly, raising himself off of his heels until he's almost free of Cas . . . and every time Castiel's body begins to protest the loss, every time he wants to thrust upwards to keep himself buried inside him, Dean meets him half-way, fucking himself back down sharply, adjusting the angle until he is gasping, dragging Castiel's cock along his channel, the friction of it overriding everything but need.
It takes Castiel's mind a moment to remember that he has hands, and a moment longer to participate, one hand to the small of Dean's back to brace him in his arched ride, to help him find that angle that punches all of the air out of him, and letting him set the rhythm for now, and he curls his other fist around Dean's cock, creating a deliberate counterstroke. The effect is immediate: Dean moans, raw and breathy, and Castiel feels the immediate and driving need to make pulling that sound from Dean as often as possible his life's mission.
His knot is swelling, insistent, and they're tied now. . . Dean can't go, can't leave him wanting. Castiel's so close and he's waited so long, and he wants to last, he wants to be good for Dean, but Dean is clenching down around him now, hot and slick and perfect and he can't stop. He doesn't realize he's biting down on his lip until Dean leans forward to kiss him breathlessly while Castiel pumps his fist along Dean's length, and they're so close he can feel it, feel Dean pulsing around him, wanting, Dean's pre-come smearing against his fingertips. "Let it go, Cas. . ."
Cas's eyes snap open again, focused on Dean's, he drives his hips upwards instinctively, grinding his knot against Dean's prostate, releases his bruised lip from his teeth, and with a roll of his hips and an explosive moan, his orgasm hits him intensely, jolting through him like electricity.
Moments later, Dean slumps over him bonelessly, his own come painted across Castiel's stomach, and the angle tugs at Cas's knot uncomfortably for both of them. His nose against Dean's hair, he wraps both of his arms around his mate and rolls his hips again lazily with the next wave of his orgasm, before bracing himself against the mattress and reluctantly moving them up the bed, until he's half propped against the headboard with Dean seated in his lap and tight around his knotted cock, limbs coiled loosely around him and his face hidden against Cas's shoulder.
He can't see Dean's expression. He doesn't know how he is, if he's okay. Petting his hands along Dean's back, he nudges at the side of Dean's head gently with his nose, kissing his temple, flushed with nervousness, and his voice is low and hoarse from holding back so long. "I was. . . was that. . . good?"
Dean's rich, sated chuckle is answer enough and Cas relaxes, letting his hands fall to Dean's hips again, rocking him gently just to wring another quiet, breathless moan out of his mate and fresh load of come from himself.
". . . Yeah, Cas. Yeah, that was real good." Raising his head, Dean kisses the corner of his mouth and settles his arms around Cas's shoulders, circling his hips slowly just to see the reaction and smirk smugly, watching Cas with shining eyes through dark lashes. "Give me 'bout an hour and some breakfast, then we're doing that again."
Cas nods, eyes closing, slumping in place and moaning quietly at the next wave of pleasure Dean milks out of him, before letting one hand fall loose in a very lazy, abstract sort of gesture at the tray beside them and its covered drinks and food. "I got coffee and juice, and Jo left a note in the fridge and with half of a pie . . ."
He's not sure why that wins a lusty moan from Dean, or a downright filthy kiss, but he'll take it.
xXx
It is 10:00 in the morning and Castiel is still in love and now thoroughly, completely certain he's not a virgin any more. He doesn't want to move, doesn't want to think, and being pushed out of bed to shower has less appeal when he realizes that once Dean's clean he isn't planning on staying in there for another round. Something about hot water heaters having limits and unpleasantness of cold showers and muscle cramps from holding a position, and while Cas is certain he's probably right he didn't want to hear logic about it.
He doesn't want to get around. He doesn't want to go visit Dean's brother and talk legal issues, he wants to curl back up with Dean again and feed him pieces of pie off of his fork just to see the way his lips wrap around the tines and his throat bobs as he swallows and eyes flutter with pleasure. He wants to finger his come lazily back into Dean, wring another orgasm out of his mate while he recovers, and then slide into him again. He's not certain how it is that Dean's moving around when he feels like he could sleep for a year (save for rousing for more sex, but he's been teased for having a lot of pent up sexual urges to work through, and maybe there's something to that), but as he leans against the bathroom door with a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair streaming water into his eyes, watching Dean walk to the dresser, he smugly realizes that the bowlegged Omega is still feeling the effects too.
"What're you smirking at?" Dean challenges, eyes narrowed, and Castiel shrugs, shakes his head, and pushes off of the doorframe to amble across the room, cup his hands to Dean's cheeks and kiss him softly.
"Nothing."
"Good. Clothes on, then. We gotta bring Ellen back her car, and I need to get the Impala to the garage. Sam'll talk to us there." Castiel hums wordless agreement and lets his hands drop to his sides again loosely, and Dean rolls his eyes and pulls open Cas's dresser for him. "The only way you could be less subtle is if you had a neon flashing sign that says 'I just got laid' pointing at you."
"Where do you think we could buy one of those?" The deadpan is completely worth the face he wins from Dean with that.
"Great. I created a nymphomaniac. Do you even own jeans, man?" Castiel shrugs, completely useless for answers until Dean glares at him. "Maybe one pair? I've worn a uniform of some sort or another since I started school. Catholic school. . ."
"Catholic school uniformed Castiel. Now there's an image I want to keep." Dean leers.
". . . then seminary, then priesthood, then army, then scrubs. I mostly have suits or slacks and button ups. Because you need those for interviews and consults and. . ."
"Yeah, yeah. I get it. You're a social train wreck. No cooking skills, no wardrobe, and you even go to bars in a churchgoing suit. That's not going to work in the garage." Dean digs into his bag, grabs a pair of jeans and a worn t-shirt and shoves them into Cas's hands. "Get a belt. It'll do."
"I'm wearing your clothes now." It's not a question, and Castiel considers it for a moment before perching on the edge of the bed, trying not to smile. "Isn't that better than a neon sign?"
"Shut up, Cas!" Dean calls, already dressed and stepping out of the bedroom to grab his shoes from by the door.
Castiel chuckles to himself as he gets ready. Maybe they do bicker, as the officer had claimed yesterday. But Castiel's enjoying it.
He's definitely in love.