Chapter Text
Dean’s eyelids flutter open as he groans. There’s a dull throb in his left temple and he’s both hot and cold—soaked to the bone on one side but dry on the other. A campfire crackles on the rocky surface he’s on. His head had been resting on something plaid. It’s dark all around, with only the blue light of the moon—
No, that’s wrong.
The hair on the back of Dean’s neck raises as he realizes that the clearing he’s in is actually a massive cavern. What he thought were trees in the corners of his vision are giant stalagmites rising from the floor. On the cave walls, intricate runes and carved pictures dance in the flickering firelight. There’s a body of water nearby, lit from within by an eerie blue glow. At first, Dean can’t see where the light emanates from, but as he gets his bearings and slowly gets to his feet, he suddenly remembers that he probably isn’t here alone.
“Cas? You in here with me?” He begins to turn away from the darkness, but he’s interrupted by what seems like thousands of tiny blue fireflies illuminating crevices in the cave walls.
A presence touches his mind, reassuring and careful. In it, he feels something familiar, and he remembers what Cas had said before he conked his skull on those rocks.
I am the Loch Ness Monster.
“Holy shit,” Dean breathes. To his horror and amazement, the cavern walls and the bright fireflies begin to move. As the cave undulates, Dean can’t make any sense of it until a huge, phosphorescent blue eye peers at him. Finally, it all slides into place. He makes out the massive domed head and limbs—so many of them, and some still hidden behind this creature. Dean’s brain scrabbles for purchase on what he’s seeing. His breath comes fast, hunting instincts kicking in first as he tenses up to defend himself.
The Loch Ness Monster.
Fear not, Dean Winchester, a deep and recognizable voice speaks into his mind. I am Castiel.
Cas.
I will never harm you, Dean.
The voice is Cas, one hundred percent. That same feeling of rightness effuses the low rumble in his mind. A furled, rocky-brown limb slowly snakes out of the water toward him. It takes all of Dean’s inner discipline to remain still and remind himself not all monsters. He takes a deep breath and centers himself.
Cas had known that Dean was hunting the monster the whole time—hunting him, Castiel! Offering to guide had been Cas’ idea entirely. If Cas was going to kill him, or hell, if he hadn’t trusted Dean at all, he would have ganked Dean sooner. The very first night, even. Or the second time, after Cas knew everything. He certainly wouldn’t have drawn Dean in, making him fall for a vibrant, eccentric Scotsman who liked tea and foraging for mushrooms. And this—a creature willingly revealing himself to the most dangerous hunter in the world…
Goosebumps shiver on Dean’s neck where Cas had bitten him a little too hard last night. He reaches up and cups the spot, remembering Cas’ expression of shame and worry at hurting Dean back at the hotel. That’s enough for Dean.
“Cas… I trust you.”
The thick limb nudges closer to Dean and uncoils, revealing two long lines of pale suckers (each about the size of his palm), and then stills. The colors under Cas' skin shift subtly. Dean crouches down and reaches out a hand to touch. The surface of the limb appears rough due to the mottled color, but the skin is smooth and pebbled like wet leather under Dean’s fingertips.
“I’ve seen way freakier things than you,” Dean quips nervously as he slowly feels Cas’... arm (he guesses— leg? No, arm. ), grinning at the eye fixed on him. “I mean, have you met other creatures before?”
The rocky skin visibly smooths as the colors morph darker, spreading like spots of ink. The bioluminescent spots that had seemed so like fireflies grow larger and bloom more light into the cave. More of Cas’ form is visible with his camouflage lowered. Dean’s read enough Lovecraft and researched plenty of old lore (and hell, he’s woken up to the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie playing in the middle of the night after dozing off drunk in a shitty motel more than once) to realize that he’s seeing some kind of giant octopus-Kraken-Cthulhu kind of shit. And, well, clearly there are some shapeshifting abilities factored in here as well.
Not of my own kind, Cas says. I have said before that I have been alone for all of my life.
Ah, Dean remembers that now. “So, that wasn’t just some story?”
I have never lied to you, Dean. I concealed the truth when it was prudent, but you… You have opened me to new experiences and emotions in a way that I was unprepared for. I never felt entirely safe with humans before you. I politely shared culture, food, and sometimes intercourse out of curiosity for my neighbors, but I knew I did not belong with them.
The notes of sadness in Cas' voice hit Dean in the gut. It’s the same flavor of loneliness that has soured in his stomach throughout his whole life. The constant moving, the lack of connection to the people around him, never finding that someone like Sam had (because at least Sam had learned what it was like to love Jess, so he could recognize the feeling with Eileen). It strikes him then, that he and Cas share their lives of otherness like matched halves finding a whole with each other. They both look the part on the surface—what attractive, charming white man is ever out of place? But the life of monster hunting, the life of a monster, is so fundamentally different from that apple pie life Dean’s always secretly craved. There’s always a part of you that’ll worry you’ll be rejected if they knew the whole truth.
And here they are now, at their whole truth.
“You and me both, man,” Dean says, patting Cas’ limb and smiling up at his big eye. He settles from his crouch into a comfortable cross-legged seat, keeping his back to the fire to warm up the side of his body that hadn’t dried completely. “The past couple of weeks have been something new for me too, besides the change of scenery.”
Cas’ large body slowly shifts forward in the water, bringing his eye down to Dean’s level and leaning over the bank. The eye alone is the size of an open umbrella—though it might just be the socket that’s blue. A kind of black, rectangular dash sits in the center of it, and Dean can’t tell if that’s the pupil or the eye itself. While Cas’ whole body is fascinating, Dean can’t help but feel that asking him a million intrusive questions about his true form and how it all works would be rude and tactless. (The last being you would want to piss off is one that’s the size of a small house.)
Really, he should be afraid of Cas’ closeness. A normal person would be afraid. With the surprise wearing off, however, Dean is Valium-comfortable and light. Staying in contact with Cas’ skin makes the bite mark on Dean’s neck tingle pleasantly, as if Cas was behind him and nuzzling into it. A part of Dean’s mind notes that, yeah, that’s not a usual response to touch, but who’s to say what’s usual at this point of things? He rolls with it. With a gentle tug, Dean pulls Cas’ limb into his lap, memorizing the texture of the scintillating flesh and watching small spots of colored cells grow and shrink underneath his fingertips. He’s as thick as Dean’s forearm at the sucker-less tip and increases in circumference back towards his body. His arm snakes around Dean’s waist, resting the tip on a thicker portion of his limb like a dog curling up in its owner’s lap. Dean can’t resist stroking him like a pet, and while the suckers along the underside of his arm mouth the fabric of his shirt.
It goes beyond just a new experience, Cas continues. His voice presses into Dean’s mind insistently without gaining volume. Your gentleness and sincerity are rare among humans—I am not sure that you see it yourself. I did not know that a man like you existed, to reach into my depths and I… I opened to you. You changed me, Dean.
It’s a confession, deeper than the standard three words and more profound for it. And still, unexpected sadness laces around Cas’ words, forlorn and longing. It sounds like finality.
Dean’s face flushes hot as his eyes prickle when he realizes what Cas is heading toward. "Why does this sound like a goodbye?"
Because it is, Castiel says simply.
“Cas…” Dean’s hand stops stroking the arm in his lap and he squeezes it gently to steady his shaking hand. “Don’t do this.” A few days on a camping trip, and he was already desperate for this not to be the end. What the hell would his life be like now, to go back to the bunker and Sam and his dank, windowless cell of a bedroom alone? To drink by himself and watch Game of Thrones for a fifth time and gank monsters only to be reminded of the one that had stolen his heart? To listen to fucking Taylor Swift and think of the giant octopus that got away?
We live on opposite ends of a great ocean. You have traveled much further than I in the course of your life and I think you realize that a vast ocean of corn would not properly house me in this form.
Dean’s hand squeezes further and his thumb slips along the underside until it meets a small sucker that grips onto it tightly, nearly enveloping it. The cupped muscle is ridged along the inside and the center holds a smooth hollow that the pad of his thumb fits into. “So we find a nice lake house or something—”
Cas’ logical explanation remains steady. You hunt beings like me so that we don’t bring harm to humankind—
“You’ve said yourself that you’re a—a gentlemanly creature,” Dean says, frustrated and searching for anything that would prevent the end of… whatever they have together.
I would never harm you, Cas repeats. His big eye blinks slowly and he continues with measured care. But I cannot promise the same for those that would seek to do me harm. You are not the only one of your kind and, like those that disparage homosexual men, I doubt that they would look kindly on either of us should I be discovered. Even more than I would defend myself, I would protect you from them.
Dean’s voice drops into gravel at the thought of some asshole poking around and causing trouble with him and Cas. “I wouldn’t let that happen, Cas. The other hunters can go fuck themselves. They’d know better than to fuck with me.”
An audible exhale emanates from somewhere on Cas’ body. A fucking sigh. This is exactly what I mean. Your life has been full of violence already, and my presence in it would only bring more to you. We may defend each other, but more would come. Again, we would protect each other, and still, more would hear of the monster and come. I cannot be kept a secret forever.
Each further point of Cas’ explanation drives a nail of painful understanding into Dean’s heart. He knows all too well what his fellow hunters would do. Hell, he’d done it before to Sam’s kitsune friend, Amy. The memory of her and his regret still pierces, even so many years later. His opinions may have changed, but his actions will haunt him forever.
“Then…” Dean swallows. “I could…”
The same is true of anywhere we would be together, even here on the loch. It matters not. We will be found.
Dean finally has to look away, to duck his head to hide his face scrunching up from the ache in his chest. “Why? Why did you…” He wasn’t even sure what he was asking, but god, it was all starting to feel ridiculous. Of course, Dean—of all fucking beings—would fall for a shapeshifting octopus monster with massive tentacles and not a fucking human or at least like a vampire or some shit. No—he had to have the most impossible romantic connection that’s gonna leave him lovesick and even more emotionally stunted for the rest of his goddamn life. (Just wait until his therapist heard about this. ) It’s all feeling so hopeless that a laugh bubbles up in him and he can’t stop himself from chuckling weakly.
“What are we even doing here, Cas?” A tear falls down his cheek and he gives Cas a sad smile.
Cas’ arm lifts and ever-so-gently swipes the tiny tear track from Dean’s cheek. I could not maintain my human shape any longer and decided to trust you with knowledge of my true form because it is what you were searching for. I could not imagine hurting you by making you believe that the man you had spent time with had vanished just as you shared strong emotions.
He pauses, and Dean can feel him weighing something.
I've been fascinated by this human concept ever since I can remember. Poems are written about it. Songs are sung in its name. Humans fight and die for it. Bairns are born from it. And yet, I couldn't understand. Language was simple, as was discovering the mechanics of intercourse, and yet, I got no closer to uncovering the truth—until you. Over our time together, I grew warm like a fire. My human shape seemed almost to become my real skin and, in truth, I wish it was so easy.
"Wanting what you can’t have never ends well," Dean agrees in a husky and tear-choked voice, cradling Cas' arm and feeling it squeeze him softly in return like a cuddly anaconda.
Happiness isn't in the having, Cas replies. It's in just being—in saying it. In revealing my true form, I have shared with you everything I am. There is nothing else that I want or expect from you. Your knowledge of me and my existence is enough.
"Cas…" His voice trails off as his words fail him, and Dean clutches Cas' arm against him, stroking up and down its length as if he were rubbing Cas' human back to comfort him.
Through his tears, the spots of color and light in Castiel’s skin flicker and pulse rapidly. Beyond the blacks and blues and browns, a myriad of other colors shift below the surface like a pointillist painting. Greens and yellows and whites appear like the dappling of sunlight through trees from underneath water. A deep groan rumbles through the cave and a shiver ripples down Cas' arm.
Not being an expert on Kraken body language, Dean peers at Cas shyly and hazards a question. "You feeling okay, buddy?"
That limb seems to be an erogenous zone, Cas explains with a note of dry humor. An image of Cas' deadpan human face flashes through Dean’s mind as well, and it’s all so unexpected that Dean laughs. (Giggles, really. He’s never been mature.)
"Oh shit, man—sorry! Didn't mean to fondle you all during a serious conversation."
After thinking for almost a minute, Cas finally replies with careful words, You may continue if you feel comfortable.
That stops him. "Do you like it? Like, like it-like it?"
Dean hears Cas sigh again, less sad and more… relaxed.
I didn’t think arousal was biologically possible for me.
"Never?"
In truth, I had never felt it in any form before we began our quest. I had observed interactions between humans and seen their bonds and celebrations and family units, and it was unlike anything I had observed from animals. Certainly, animals mate, but humans… I wanted to understand how it was different. I mimicked them—penile erection was simple to recreate—but ultimately it was a pastime for entertainment and pleasure. Something was missing.
Dean nods. “I’ve been there. Sex doesn’t fill the hole.”
There’s a rumbling huh-huh-huh of air around him and Dean realizes that Cas is laughing.
“What did I say?”
Sexual intercourse can fill many holes, Cas chuckles and shows Dean a mental image of himself leaning into Dean, cracking up with laughter, and showing his teeth all the way to the gums.
A real, bright laugh bursts out and Dean doubles over until he’s wheezing at Cas’ lewd joke. “Jesus—I feel like I’ve corrupted you or something!”
Perhaps, Cas muses, smug pride at his own humor turning back to introspection. Our developing friendship and intimacy cultivated my desire and admiration for you. I had assumed that it would be spontaneous, like lightning, because that’s what is portrayed in the little human media I’ve viewed. But in reality, it’s more like a fern.
“You’re gettin’ all poetic on me,” Dean says, smiling softly at the huge creature. His fingers returned to tracing the texture of Cas’ skin, and he feels utterly comfortable—both with Cas and with his own feelings.
Forgive me. What I mean to say is we both decided to place trust in each other, and the more of it we gave, the deeper I think we both felt our emotions go. And now, I’m experiencing feelings and reactions that I never expected.
“Yeah… I think that sums it up pretty well.” Dean says, and his fingers skate up the twin lines of suckers on the underside of Cas’ arm until they end with a divot that, when he presses his fingers against it, separates into a moist slit.
Cas groans again, and his skin flickers in peachy pinks and brighter blue lights. Dean gasps, withdrawing his fingers from the slit in worry. “Sorry—did that hurt you?”
On the contrary, it is very pleasing. Simply a new sensation in this form, Cas says, and Dean can hear him breathing heavier. Without Dean’s touch, the vertical slit slowly unfurls like a calla lily. Scintillating specks dance along the inside of his newly-revealed opening. Please... continue.
Sweat beads on Dean’s forehead from both the warmth of the fire behind him and the flush in his cheeks. He isn’t certain where their careful touches are leading in a technical sense, but he can feel the yearning for an intimate closeness both in Cas’ voice and in himself. Before Dean’s eyes, Cas continues to develop. A glowing shaft emerges from the center of Cas’ petaled appendage. To Dean, it appears similar to the human penis he’s already familiar with (just neon blue and bioluminescent now) and for a moment he can see what could possibly happen, but then long lines on the outer surface that he had thought were scars separate and the whole shaft splits into four independent filaments.
While a bit intimidating from a sex standpoint, it’s also intensely beautiful. It radiates the brightest light, and Dean almost can’t look at it directly in the darkness of the cave. And all he can do is stare, wide-eyed, in awe at the trust that Cas has placed literally in his hands.
“This is… You’re amazing, Cas.”
There’s a humming sound of approval.
I feel much the same about your form.
“Me? A puny human?” Dean scoffs, allowing himself to examine Cas closer and trace his finger along the outer lip of Cas’ petal. A rainbow of colors flows over his skin and reflects back on Dean’s pale hand in the half-light. In the moment, he feels the colors like his own emotions, that he and Cas are drawn together by the heartstrings and synced up. Despite the difference in body and size, this is still Cas— his Cas that he made love to endlessly on the longest day of the year, that he swam naked with under the moonlight, that walked beside him for miles as they spoke freely. And it clicks then—the mental images that he would see when they reached the peak of their lovemaking, that was the Loch Ness monster in him bleeding through the camouflaged surface, the pieces of Castiel that could never be hidden. Dean’s stomach flip-flops, and he licks his lips as a wave of his own arousal rises from below. (And hell, why not?)
“Can we…?” he ventures.
I’m not in human form… Cas starts, suddenly sounding shy. Our genitalia may not be compatible.
“Hey, I’m not picky. Let’s see what we’re working with.” Dean winks at him, charming as anything.
As you wish, Dean. I will repay your gentleness in kind.
Cas loosens his arm around Dean, allowing him to stand. Dean drags his damp t-shirt over his head and exposes himself to both the chill of the cavern and the warm heat radiating from the fire. There’s a gentle tug at his belt as another one of Cas’ many arms unlatches it with surprising dexterity. The button of his jeans is too tricky, however, so Dean does that part himself. He pushes his underwear down with the denim. The cold air isn’t awesome against his skin or his cock, and he shivers.
May I lift you? Cas asks, sounding unsure of what might be allowed.
Dean remembers Cas picking him up to fuck him standing and suddenly he’s feeling a bit less cold. “Yeah, of course,” Dean says.
Cas’ arms wrap around him again—cool, damp skin on cool, damp skin. The lines of suckers walk along his body and taste him, attaching and reattaching with the sensation of being cupped and squeezed by a hundred small hands. Dean’s body lights with sensations as they tickle and tantalize his soft and sensitive parts.
I don’t want to risk hurting you, as I did before, Cas admits with a note of internal guilt.
“Hey—hey, now!” Dean protests kindly, patting the topside of Cas’ arm. “We could always approach it like… have you ever seen a stoplight?”
Cas puzzles for a moment then conveys a noise of assent to Dean’s mind.
“So, they show a red light for ‘stop,’ a green light for ‘go,’ and a yellow light for ‘slow down.’ Sometimes humans use those colors doing, like, kinkier sex stuff. We, uh, prolly should’ve done that for some earlier activities,” Dean explains, remembering their first time hooking up and how lenient he’d been with, well, everything. ( One aggro guy in a kilt and everything goes out the window, huh, Winchester? ) “Maybe using a system like that now would help us feel more comfortable with boundaries?”
I like that idea, Cas agrees, sounding pleased with the simple solution. Red, yellow, green… What color do you choose for me lifting you? I wish to observe your pleasure in closer proximity.
Dean blushes and smiles. “Green—I trust you, Cas.”
Another happy hum fills the air and, ever-so-slowly, Dean’s feet leave the ground as he’s securely suspended in a coiled nest of tentacles. True to their agreement, Cas is careful in bringing Dean closer to his giant eye and Dean trusts him, feeling utterly safe. He relaxes back into Cas’ cradle. The light from the fire doesn’t reach as far, but the constellation of lights under Cas’ skin, as well as the bright filaments of the unfurled appendage that had remained close to Dean’s body, painted Dean’s bare skin with enough blue light to see by.
They gaze at each other for a moment, as they do, and as Dean feels the soft stroke of a tip and the mouthing of small suckers over his ribs, he tries his best to not be ticklish. When Cas finds Dean’s nipple with his first sucker, goosebumps ripple down Dean’s body and his breath comes sharp. It’s not so different—the sucker works the hardened nub and Dean’s always loved a bit of this to start. Another arm spirals its way around Dean’s calf up to the knee and draws his leg open gently so that Cas’ flower can settle between them, resting in Dean’s lap as an invitation.
“May I touch you?” Dean asks, low and reverent.
Instead of words, Cas shows him the color of grass, of new buds, of yes.
Both of Dean’s hands satisfy his curiosity, drawing along the orchidaceous outer ridge before dipping into the blossom's inner shell. It glistens with some secretion, shining in its own glow and slippery under Dean’s fingers. And here he found another answer—he raises his fingers to his mouth to taste, and there it is, the answer to the source of that perfect lube. There was a kind of flower that Dean used for a spell once—an awapuhi— and by squeezing the red bulb of the flower its juice would run, flowing over your hand. At the base of Cas' blue fronds, Dean took them all in both hands and stroked up, his grip milking Cas’ discharge from the fronds in a gush, just like an awapuhi flower. A hum of pleasure from Cas rings loud as his secretions dribble down Dean’s wrists and forearms and drip onto his thighs.
Cas’ arms tighten around him and he sends Dean a memory with a curling question: his perspective from the hotel bed, gazing down the hard planes of his human abdomen at Dean, who looks back at him with half-lidded, fuck-me eyes as plush, pink lips wrap around the head of his cock. It’s like having a porno in his head, clearer than anything he could imagine or remember on his own.
“Yeah, green,” Dean says, and he brings the fronds up to close his mouth around them.
The flavor of Cas’ slickness floods his mouth, sweet and addictive, and a spike of need drives down his spine. He bobs his head shallow at first, learning Cas’ girth and the new, smooth texture on his tongue and swallowing down slick as needed. There’s no reason to rush, after all.
That is very enjoyable, Cas says, sounding breathless in Dean’s mind.
One of Dean’s slippery hands falls away from the fronds and he takes his cock in hand to stroke himself, easing off the urgency. And apparently, Cas had noticed, because one of his arms brushes Dean’s hand away to wrap a tip around Dean’s cock, cupping suckers onto his balls and immediately taking over the task. It’s unpracticed—clumsy compared to how skilled Cas is with human hands, opposable thumbs, and a tongue—but it’s still so good between the moments of unintended roughness.
Dean, slick running down his chin and neck, groans around the fronds filling his mouth and pulls back off of them after a particularly hard tug on his dick. “Yellow, Cas—a little less,” he prompts gently. Normally it would be fine, but there’s no way to be too cautious with a creature who can easily rip your penis off on a whim (and realizing that doesn’t make Cas any less attractive).
Cas’ arm releases his cock immediately. I apologize, Dean, I—
Dean shakes his head. “Yellow isn’t stop, just slow. It felt good, alright?”
There’s a weighty pause from Cas as he thinks. Dean waits for him, lazily stroking the fronds in his hand and watching the colors dance on Cas’ skin. Each of the glowing organs move independently, occasionally coiling around his wrist or touching him in return. The longer Cas debates with himself, the more Dean explores and eventually his fingers press against a puckered hole in the base of the fronds like the mouth of an anemone.
Cas shudders hard and bumps raise up along the flesh of his arms, so Dean prompts him. “Gimme a color, buddy.”
Red for buddy, little fish, Cas says with a tone like an eye-roll, then he softens and darkens to velvet. Green for… that.
The corner of Dean’s mouth quirks up in satisfaction. He presses forward again, his finger breaching a ring of muscle that feels familiar enough. “For this ?”
Cas moans, deep and guttural, as Dean toys with the mouth of his opening. There are no real words from him, but the images get the point across just fine: the first hot sip of mugwort tea, a clean dive from a high place, kissing with Dean human lips and feeling something right . The blossom shoves into Dean’s fingers, driving them further into the central opening as it widens for him, hungry and eager. The memories flick, frenzied, to scenes of Dean looking down into Cas' face, thrusting his cock deep into him, and the overwhelming pleasure of letting go, of just being and existing.
A sexy lightbulb goes off in Dean’s head, and he flushes at the idea. Withdrawing his arm from Cas’ grasp is difficult, mainly because the giant creature isn’t too keen on stopping. The edges around Cas’ thoughts are blurred and something animal has taken hold. There’s a dark noise almost like a growl as Dean extricates himself, and the arms coiled around him tighten.
“I know, sweetheart,” Dean croons at the monster as he pulls the bloom back into his lap. His cock twitches and aches as he parts the slick fronds and aligns himself with Cas’ pucker. As Cas realizes what Dean intends through the haze of his need, he lights up—literally, in lines and whorls of neon chromatophores—with rabid excitement.
And Cas holds on to his higher functions for long enough to say one last thing:
Green.
Cas’ blossom thrusts forward, swallowing Dean’s cock deep and knocking the wind out of the man. It’s a tight, hot, wet heaven, and Dean clings onto the outer petal for something stable as Cas overtakes him. Again, again, again—Dean is buried in Cas over and over before he can draw a full breath. It catches in his lungs every time Cas fucks himself on Dean’s cock and his head swims in a sea of pleasure. The monster agrees, from what Dean can hear above their wet noises and his own breathy moans—there’s a constant warble in the cave now, like whalesong or a theremin chorus. Dean releases in a burst of ecstasy, but Cas’ latch on him only tightens. The powerful muscles lining the inner mouth of Cas’ anemone milk the come from his cock until he’s whimpering and still the creature continues to writhe and thrust and suck. A puddle of oversensitivity, Dean holds onto Cas and gives over to the ancient instinct driving their intercourse.
For a while, everything outside of the union of their bodies fades into a blur. Time is unimportant.
Dean? Cas calls for him after their frenzy slows, drawing his name out in a long, blissful line as the mindless fog recedes.
Returning to himself, he chuckles weakly and pats some close part of Cas. “Howdy, partner.”
There’s a complicated, hurried thought that Cas tries to impart, but Dean doesn’t quite understand the mechanical portion other than the idea of mating and oneness and pleasure. Color?
Cas can handle the logistics, he decides. “Green, baby—take me all the way,” Dean replies, rough and fucked-out. His exhausted body slumps back against the nest of Cas’ arms. The large suckers attach to him, holding him in place, and he’s glad for it. He lets himself go, releasing his will into the tide.
The glossy fronds that had occupied Dean’s attention earlier lathe over his skin, lapping at the soft parts of his thighs. He doesn’t have to move a muscle—or rather, he probably couldn’t with Cas curling around every one of his limbs. (And damn, how lucky is he to find a man who is literally a bondage wet dream? Thank God for hentai!) The blossom squeezes his cock tight again as the fronds spread and search over his skin. One skates up his navel to roll a nipple. Another traces the underside of his wrist up to the crease of his elbow, leaving goosebumps in its wake. Underneath his thigh, a frond finds the curve of his ass and then travels in to lick against his hole.
Dean’s knee jerks involuntarily at the sudden, wet touch but he relaxes back again when the frond doesn’t waver. “There—ah, yeah,” he mumbles with a sigh. The slick eases the way for the frond to enter him, and the near-constant fucking they’d been up to at the hotel still had him pretty open. It doesn’t take long for his body to adjust to the probing frond. It narrowed for a while at the beginning and thickened as Dean grew ready. Some octopus magic, Dean assumes.
He can feel himself riding close to the edge of his orgasm—if it’s the second or the fifth, he has no idea. Cas’ blossom has exchanged the movement of their thrusts for the squeeze of internal contractions around his cock. It’s bliss, sweetly and gently drawing him to the end as the frond glides against his prostate. He’s rising—and then, something changes. Something strokes the head of his dick, licking it like a tongue and dipping into the slit of his urethra, and oh— oh!
You are safe.
“Cas—!” Dean gasps and digs his fingers into Cas’ arms as the tiny tendril enters his channel. The surprise of it snatches his breath and he plunges into an ocean full of stars.
I have you, little fish. Come for me.
His body throbs like it does with a strong prostate orgasm, but he’s convinced that he’s dying. He can’t see, other than pinpricks of blue light. His brain might also be melting out of his ears from the euphoria of it all, or he’s stroking out. He feels heavy. He feels like nothing. A heavy nothing.
You’re not nothing, Dean. You are everything. Cas chides him nonsensically, also sounding blissed out.
There’s a faint sensation of withdrawal somewhere, but Dean isn’t anywhere near reality anymore. Those three words that were once too big surface out of the blue-black galaxy, and he acknowledges them, finally.
Hey—I love you.
Cas is right. It’s enough for those words to exist and live and breathe. Love doesn’t have to fit into crevices or hide away—it can just be. Happiness pours through Dean’s veins as he thinks it, filling his heart and lungs with light.
I love you, too.
Dean smiles as he fades out, and the last thing he feels is the warmth of a fire and a body curling around his back.
The next time when Dean wakes, he is in a bed. Granny quilt, lace curtains, plaid carpet—the bed and breakfast in Foyers. Light filters through the windows, dappled by the nearby trees. He shifts, feeling around him for Cas, but neither human or octopus is in his bed, or even in his room.
He aches unpleasantly all over like he’s run a marathon and fucked himself stupid for three days and—oh, yeah, he basically did that. Wincing and moving gingerly, Dean checks the bathroom, his belongings, and even goes around the breakfast area downstairs to ask after Cas.
“Aye, I know him, but he seems more like a loner, ye ken?” The sweet, old housekeeper says, patting Dean’s hands when his face falls. “Best not to get too cut up about him ‘fore ye head home.”
Dejected, he heads back upstairs and sits down (ouch) at the table that held his research notes. It would be easy to imagine that Cas would walk back in through the door at any moment, but that isn’t how their tense conversation in the cave had gone. Cas purposefully ended their discussion at a goodbye before they had made love, then left like a ghost (or a mythological creature) before Dean could convince him to stay. He wouldn't even know where to start looking for him, either. The location of Cas' cave is a mystery, and it's not like Dean figured any of that shit out on his own.
Dean drops his head into his hands, clenching his jaw against the stinging in his eyes. The hollow place in his heart, the one that Cas had soothed, is back and burning like an abandoned house on fire. Sure, it’ll smolder down to ashes, but nobody lives there and nobody cares.
“Dammit!” He shouts, and slams a fist on the little table, rattling objects and causing a stack of papers to slip off onto the floor and scatter.
His outburst doesn’t help anything—it never does—and it only serves to make him feel stupid as he sighs and gets up to gather his notes. He should’ve just taken Cas’ goodbye when he had the chance instead of cashing in on his monsterfucker kink.
“You fuckin’ idiot, throwing yourself at a goddamn octopus after he already told you he didn’t want to be with you,” Dean mutters, picking up page after page of Loch Ness Monster photos and accounts—all of them familiar except a piece of roughly deckled, obviously handmade paper with a scrawled message. He almost folds it in with the rest and ignores it, but he reads it all in a glance and freezes as the words sink in.
Dean—This is not a goodbye. Castiel.
The tears that Dean had been holding back fall onto the paper and sink in, leaving wet spots. On the floor, another page that he knew had once held the general address of the Bunker had the relevant information torn off. He sniffs hard and shakes his head with a weak laugh.
“I should’ve taught you how to use a fuckin’ smartphone.”