Chapter Text
Dean and Cas lay across the hood of the Impala, still slightly out of breath. They had managed to tug their boxers back on with boneless arms, and the fading heat that had been scorched into the metal all day was tingling under their skin. They passed a lazy lukewarm beer back and forth. As Dean stretched his body across his Baby, with his head tipped against Castiel’s shoulder, knowing that Sam was safe at the motel, a word crept along the edges of his consciousness, insinuated itself into his belly.
Dean shoved it away, locked it down. It was a dangerous word, an ugly word not allowed in the vocabulary of people like him. But Cas shifted, pulling him in closer so that his nose was filled with the smell of his angel and his car, the leftover tang of sex and the sweet salt wash, and Dean sighed, letting the word coalesce, rolling it around in his mouth.
He didn’t even understand what it meant, happiness. All his life his only priority had been taking care of Sammy. And he’d known Sam had needed him, so his own well-being factored in tangentially, like an afterthought. If Sam was okay, then he was okay, and any self-analysis beyond that seemed inconsequential.
And it was terrifying because he knew it couldn’t last, their little haven, because all havens get burned to the ground eventually. Soon they’d be back to fear and blood and loss, and the memory of this feeling would eat him up inside.
Dean shook himself. He looked over, and Cas was staring at the sky, his mouth moving soundlessly.
“Hey, Cas?” he said. He cleared his throat. “Hey, what’re you saying?”
Cas turned his head, with a soft but distant smile. “The stars, Dean. They seem nearer here, on the ocean. More themselves.”
Dean cocked his head. “They’re pretty clear in Kansas, I thought.”
Castiel hummed in assent. “Clear, yes. But they get… distracted. So many things -- so many people. Trees and houses. It’s overwhelming.”
Dean gestured vaguely towards the city lights, the neon of gift shop strip malls. “And this isn’t --?”
“It’s like,” Cas said, licking his lips. “It’s like the difference between when you have so many things in your head you can’t focus on any of them, and when you have so many things in your head but you can focus on what’s between them?” He paused. “I’m sorry. That didn’t make any sense.”
“So help me, I think it did,” Dean said. He laughed. “My angel boyfriend just accidentally psychoanalyzed me with a celestial metaphor.” Castiel smiled, letting his lips brush against Dean’s face. “So -- what were you saying, though? If, I mean, you can tell me, if it’s not some angel-secret.”
“No,” Cas said, “no secret. Hard to explain. I was… greeting them, I suppose.”
“Greeting them? D’you know their names?”
“Mostly not… in a way, it’s not unlike your human greetings. An acknowledgement, an expression of distant goodwill. I remember some, though. A few were… friends.”
“You were friends with stars, dude?”
“I liked the Pleiades,” he said quietly. “They reminded me of my brothers and sisters.”
Sadness pooled in Dean’s chest, sadness for what the angel lost, sadness for what he could never make up for.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Cas said, twining their hands together. “You’re grieving for me. I’m grieving, too, I think,” he admitted. “I knew everything. I knew who I was, who I served. I knew what to do and I knew I was right.” He felt Dean stiffen and try to turn away, and reached out to hold him closer. “No,” he said. “You, this. I know this more than anything at all.”
Dean rolled on his side, facing Cas. He let himself be cocooned by Cas’ voice and scent and touch.
“Your soul is my Heaven, Dean,” Cas murmured against his lips. “Your body is the Earth. When you move inside me, I burn with the sun.”
Dean shuddered and his breath hitched. He was hard again already, impossibly, painfully, but it wasn’t exactly lust, at least not entirely. Hypersensitive, overstimulated and trembling, like he could feel every cell in his body.
As he pressed his forehead against Castiel’s he realized with a shiver that he could see his wings again, but -- different, not a sharp vivid flash nor fleeting shadows, more like a constant that was tuned a degree off from everything else. He couldn’t focus on them intently, so he watched the stars through the feathers, and the stars looked like they belonged there, on the wings, shining on the blue-black.
He pulled his eyes back to Cas’, and fuck, he could see the same stars in his eyes, not reflections or suggestions but the constellations themselves. Something bright and unfamiliar coursed through his blood -- except it wasn’t entirely unfamiliar, it was there, somewhere deep in his memory --
Dean went rigid.
“Cas?” he whispered, uncertain. “I think -- I think I feel your grace.”
Castiel froze and his eyes went wide. He lifted his arm slowly until it hovered over the long-faded handprint on Dean’s left shoulder, then fitted his hand into the outline he remembered exactly. Dean hissed and arched, fire slipping through his veins, and reached over to press his hand over Cas’ heart.
They stared at each other for a long moment, unmoving, breath coming in staccato.
“I see galaxies in you,” Dean said, his voice low and distorted. “I can see them, and I see your wings, I, I don’t --”
Cas sucked in a breath but held himself still, then carefully, painstakingly curved his wings around until they flickered on Dean’s skin.
Dean dropped his head. The sensation on his back was so light it could have been the breeze except it lacked the neutrality of wind, the mathematical ebb and flow.
“Cas,” he whispered, “I need -- I feel like I’m breaking apart, I need you, I need you in me. Please.”
Castiel kissed him, shaky but steady, and reached down to pull their boxers off, his wings staying on skin. The need was tangible and sharp, but there weren’t any questions or assurances this time, no little games. He reached down with his other hand, pressed into Dean, and something inside opened to him easily. Dean groaned, murmuring shattered litanies into his ear.
Cas shifted him down the trunk of the car until he could align himself, then slid into him slowly and silently. Supernovas were going off in his wrists and stomach, exploding in his blood.
“Dean,” he said brokenly. “I don’t think I can move.”
“Good,” Dean hissed. “Good, please, don’t -- just need -- this, need this. It’s… so much.”
Cas stared at him, mouth slightly open. “I feel,” he whispered, choking, “I feel everything.”
They stayed locked together, gripping each other. Dean could feel Cas pulsing inside him -- inside him, yes, and that was beyond incredible, but everywhere, in arteries and sinews, bone marrow and brain matter, and his cock jerked with its rhythm.
Castiel was murmuring in languages long dead and forgotten, and Dean let the words wash over him like prayers, winding through him, and the pulsing inside intensified with their cadence, his shoulder burning under Cas’ hand.
Dean reached up to cover Cas’ hand with his own shaking one. Cas bowed his head against Dean’s and tightened his grip on his shoulder and they came together with a cry, motionless, ruined and on fire.
They stayed pressed together for long moments, taking deep shuddering breaths. “Cas?” Dean finally whispered, but Castiel just shook his head slowly. He kept his wings wrapped around them and they let themselves stay there, under the benediction of the stars, thoughts drifting with the shifting tides.