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Things had to come to a head sooner or later. Sam knew it, and so did Cas.
Dean is dangling from a precarious precipice, just as likely to keep fighting the Mark as giving in to it.
Cas already got a taste of the latter when Dean beat him to within an inch of his life. And that was because Cas tried to stand up to Dean, remind him that he is his friend, that he and Sam didn’t mean to go behind his back, that all they wanted was to help him get rid of the Mark.
Cas can’t help but think about that when he walks down the metal stairs into the bunker. Where he told Dean he didn’t want to hurt him. Where Dean just shrugged it off and beat him up, not caring one bit that Cas wouldn’t defend himself. Cas wonders whether the ache squeezing his heart will ever lessen when he thinks of the coldness in Dean’s eyes when the man crouched over him, angel blade raised to end him for good. When Dean left him lying there bloody, turning his back with nothing but more threats as he walked away.
Who is to blame Cas for being wary after that? He won’t stay away, of course not. But, just like Sam, he keeps an extra eye on Dean now, to pick up on the slightest indication that he is getting worse.
Maybe that’s also what caused this now, Cas wonders when he hears the brothers screaming at each other in the next room. Dean hates being looked at with suspicion, as much as he hates being coddled or left out of things. Maybe Sam suggested once too often that Dean better stay behind, so as not to tempt the Mark?
“What do you want me to do, Sammy? Stay cooped up in here until some miracle happens and the Mark just disappears? ‘cause that’s not gonna happen!”
“That’s not what I said!”
“Then what?”
“We just need some more time to figure out that spell and – “
“Right, the spell. Which is gonna make it all better without unleashing some new evil into the world… For that’s what’s gonna happen!”
“You don’t know that!”
“And when did that kind of magic ever come without a price, huh?”
“Dean – I’m just trying to get that thing off of you.”
“But at what cost?”
“Any –“
“See!” Dean interrupts him. “Did it ever occur to you that it’s just not worth it? No – don’t say it. You don’t have to! Not again. We keep messing things up to save each other. But you know what: I’ve come to realize the world would be a better place without us in it.”
“You don’t mean that.”
Cas feels his heart clench hearing the disbelief and pain in Sam’s voice when he says those last words. And it gets worse when he steps into the room where the brothers are facing off and sees Sam’s face, the agony in his eyes and the grim set of his lips. Whereas Dean seems shockingly unconcerned and smirks at Cas when he sees him.
“Now look who we got here. What is this, an intervention?”
Cas sighs, exchanging a look with Sam. But all he gets is a helpless shrug.
“Dean.”
“No! Don’t keep saying my name. If there’s something you wanna get off your chest, let me have it!”
“You are being unnecessarily cruel.”
“That so? All I’m saying is the truth.”
“The truth as the Mark makes you see it.”
“You two really need to lay off on the whole Mark business. Don’t you see that all we’ve done is make things worse? All the time? And not just the two of us, but you, too, Cas. Actually, you most of all.”
“Dean!” Sam cries out.
“What? It’s true. He fucking blew up Heaven. After failing miserably at playing God. And don’t get me started on that ridiculous Commander spiel…”
“Dean.”
“What, Cas? Still fooling yourself into thinking you did it all for the greater good? Think again.”
“Stop it!” Sam snaps.
“Or what? Our angel buddy’s gonna beat me up? Ready for that now, Cas? Last time didn’t go so well for you, after all.“
“Dean! Do you even hear yourself? Is the Mark – “
“It’s not about the fucking Mark, Sam. Stay out of this! Damn, I should’ve just let you sacrifice yourself to close Hell, and help Halo Commander here find an army to play with in Heaven – “
Sam raises both arms, shaking his head and backing off: “I’m not listening to this. This isn’t you, Dean. – Sorry, Cas, but I can’t…I can’t do this right now.”
“Fine, leave,” Dean rolls his eyes. Then shouts after Sam: “That’s what you do best, after all!”
“Now, angel, how about that rematch?”
“No,” Cas rasps.
“Oh, come on. I did quite a number on you. Don’t tell me you’re just gonna take it. What kind of warrior are you?”
Dean sure knows how to hit each and every sore spot point blank, Cas has a moment thinking as he struggles to reign in his anger.
“The Mark is out to hurt those around you, drive them away – you realize that, don’t you?”
“Not a soldier at all, then. No wonder you chose that accountant’s vessel. You’re a bureaucrat at heart,” Dean sneers.
Cas tries to breathe deeply, to let Dean’s taunts bounce off him. It’s the Mark, he keeps reminding himself. Or is it? Is that thing merely bringing to light what Dean truly thinks, deep down? That thought hurts more than it should, and it’s dangerous territory, too.
“You have to fight its power, Dean. Don’t give in to it. Don’t hurt your brother like that.”
“Oh, now it’s all about Sammy? What about you, Cas? Why aren’t you honest, for once? Huh? No more lies, no more scheming. You’ve failed at that, anyway. It takes brains and guts to really go through with grand plans like yours.”
“This is how you see it?” Cas blurts out. “It’s not even all the Mark talking, is it?”
So he has reached the end of his rope. So Dean finally got to him. He doesn’t care. He cannot even bring himself to care, or even take into account, that Dean actually looks hurt when he asks that. So what if Dean is still in there? He is still giving the Mark free reign to hurl all these things at them. He is letting the Mark use him to be as cruel as a man can possibly be to those who love and trust him! If Dean is in there, he is hanging on by a thread that is quickly running through his fingers, with Dean making not much of an effort to stop himself from going downhill. Maybe it’s even a relief, just letting go, finally speaking his mind. Cas didn’t expect the notion to hurt as much. Or the words, coming from Dean, of all people: “Face it, Cas, you’ve failed at everything you’ve tried to do, and you’ve failed me.”
“I FAILED YOU? What about you, Dean? You believe yourself totally blameless? Or is it that you just don’t care? Never did?! Is this the real you, then? Was all that talk about us being friends, family, was it all lies? That would explain why you dropped me like dead weight the moment I lost my powers. Cut me off and kicked me out when I was human. I fucking NEEDED you then, Dean, and you just turned your attention elsewhere! I’m the one who raised you from hell, and I have been at your beck and call ever since. That, you can taunt me for alright – and I sure know better now! If that is what you think of me, what you have been thinking all along, I get how you could treat me the way you did! Snap your fingers for an Angel of the Lord to do your bidding without even thinking twice about it. Without so much as a thank you. Of course, why would Dean Winchester have to thank anyone for anything, right? You left me hanging so many times. You made fun of me. You USED me, Dean! You used me, then threw me out when I wasn’t as useful anymore. Did you even take note of the fact that I fought for my LIFE when my Grace was fading? Or did that escape your attention because you had more important things to do than even ASK, just ONCE, if I was ok?”
Cas realizes he has been yelling only when he has to clear his throat because it feels sore. When he has to stop to draw breath. He also realizes Dean hasn’t said anything in a long while. Just listened to his rant in silence.
Now the man is looking at him from wide eyes and a face as white as a sheet.
“Cas.” When Dean finally speaks up, his voice sounds odd.
Cas sees him swallow. Sees those gorgeous green eyes shine.
“You don’t have a Mark speaking for you,” Dean says.
Cas notes absently and slightly confused that his own breath is coming out shaky and his lips seem unsteady. Trembling. He licks them. Feels his shoulders slump. He feels drained. Defeated. He never meant to hurl all of his at Dean. Not in response to things the cursed Mark made him say. Not ever.
Dean looks devastated. Cas never thought he would be the one to put that expression on Dean’s face.
They stare at each other until the silence starts to ring between them.
Dean shakes his head.
“I’m so sorry. – Cas, I don’t even know how to…I had no idea that’s how you felt. I – “
Cas raises a hand to make Dean stop talking. There is really no point. There is no coming back from this. His heart misses a beat when Dean catches his hand with his own. Holds on to his fingers.
“I had no idea,” Dean repeats.
It’s truly him now, Cas understands. The tone, the torn expression, the tormented look in Dean’s eyes. Then the gentleness with which he laces their fingers together. This is Dean overpowering the Mark, shoving it into whatever recess he has found, for however long.
“Doesn’t matter now, does it?” Cas hears himself say.
“Don’t do that, Cas! Please? - Don’t…give up on me.” Dean’s voice grows quieter until it’s barely audible. Cas has never seen him this crushed. He never wanted to. He sighs. How could he? How could he ever give up on this man? Doesn’t Dean know that? That Cas is as incapable of deserting him as Sam? That they would both go through Heaven and Hell for Dean? They did, actually, so how could he possibly abandon Dean now, as angry as he might be?
“I won’t,” Cas pledges. “I will be here even when you don’t want me to. And I will be the one to put you down when you lose the fight against the Mark, even though it will kill me to do it.”
Dean’s lips open, incredulous.
He has no words.
Neither does Cas, not anymore.
They just look at each other, as if waiting for something, anything, to break the tension. The stalemate.
When Cas makes the move, it’s not conscious thought but instinct that drives it.
He lets his lips meet Dean’s.
If this is it, if this is the last time Dean manages to overcome the Mark and be himself, Cas wants all of him. He doesn’t want to remember this as the last time he was with the real Dean and wasted it by hurting the man. By hurling all of his anger and frustration at him in a way he never meant to, and never would have, had the Mark not brought it all to light and pushed him over the edge.
And he needs it to have been the Mark. He can’t bring himself to ask. To make sure it was.
If this is his last encounter with Dean as he was, then Cas wants the memory to be a good one. He is struggling to push down the sadness and the pain, fights to focus fully on Dean’s lips against his, open but unmoving with surprise at first. Then growing pliant and alive when Dean angles his head so their mouths slot together perfectly.
Cas couldn’t say who opened up first, who moaned first, or who sounds hungrier when they do.
“Fuck, Cas,” Dean mutters before he dives back in as if meaning to devour him. His hands are on Cas’ upper arms, then on his cheeks, then one glides back down and underneath Cas’s shirt, seeking and finding bare skin. Cas discovers he is mirroring Dean’s motions, to the point where they are pressed up against each other chest to groin, both tangibly and achingly hard and gasping.
“Fuck me, Cas. - If you don’t want to hit me, fuck me!”
Cas wants to refuse. Expects to be abhorred by the notion that this is some kind of revenge act. Yet when he hears Dean say the words, there’s all of that anger right back at the forefront of his mind. He feels it rise, like heat burning its way through his body, guiding his hands to all but rip Dean’s tee and jeans and everything else off him. Dean is gasping and somehow managing to strip Cas in turn, to run his hands over every bit of skin that gets uncovered, and Cas feels aflame, burning with need, with an urgency that makes him grab Dean and turn him around. Dean goes readily, bends over, clutches the map table for support.
“Do it, Cas!” he eggs him on, widening his stance.
Cas has a flash admiring the body spread out for his taking. Also, thanking the instinct that makes him spit directly onto where he wants to breach it. Dean twitching and pushing back, demanding Cas get on with it. When he does, when he grips himself and guides his dick to Dean’s hole, the anger crests and he thrusts in, hard and unrelenting. He hears Dean cry out, then grunt: “Move!”
So Cas moves. He pulls back from where he bottomed out, thrusts back in. Spits once more into his hand, coats himself, then enjoys the added lubrication, the smooth glide in and out of Dean’s tight channel, the man bucking against him, asking for more and harder and faster. Cas realizes he is holding Dean’s hips tight enough to leave bruises. He hears the angry slapping of skin against skin. Dean’s gasps, a mixture of pain and pleasure.
Cas stills. Lets his right hand relax into a caress that starts at Dean’s hipbone and goes up his flank and back down his spine. Dean shudders under the gentle touch.
“Cas…”
Cas changes his angle. Goes in more slowly, languidly.
Dean’s response is instant: he arcs and moans and spreads his legs some more.
“Oh fuck Cas, ja, right there.”
The angel feels his lips curl into a smile. Then he pulls out ever so carefully.
“Hey! What are you doing?”
Cas doesn’t answer but pulls Dean away from the table and maneuvers the two of them onto the heap of clothes on the floor instead.
“I want to see you,” he tells Dean. Who releases a shuddering breath, then lies back in surrender.
Cas takes a moment, lets his eyes rake over Dean’s body, laid out for him in all its naked glory. Dean meeting his gaze when it arrives at his eyes. Cas has to fight back the sudden sense of impending loss when he sees the familiar smile curl Dean’s lips. Before he hears the man’s low voice tell him to “get on with it, the floor’s fucking cold.”
Cas chuckles, then grows serious again when he puts his hands on Dean’s thighs, caressing them reverently, before gently pushing them apart. Dean pulls his legs up, opening himself again to Cas. Cas slips in slowly this time, letting himself really feel it: the breach, the clench, the relaxing and the hot tightness when he is all in, as deeply joined with Dean as he can possibly be.
He realizes he has watched himself glide in. Now that he is fully seated, his gaze returns to Dean’s face, which is flushed and beautifully scrunched with the feel of Cas inside of him. Dean’s eyes meet his, and they are open and vulnerable and filled with want all at the same time.
Cas leans in for a kiss. Then he starts moving.
He feels Dean cross his legs behind his back, giving Cas free reign. Dean’s hands are on his shoulder and the side of his face while they kiss. Then Dean loops his arms around Cas’ neck, pulling him into a tight embrace that allows Cas only the slightest room to move. It also makes their coupling all the more intimate. It’s slow now, the pleasure simmering, their bodies touching in too many places to count. Cas couldn’t even say where his ends and Dean’s begins, they are both equally hot and sweaty and entangled with each other. When he lets his lips ghost over Dean’s face to once more find his mouth, he tastes salt instead. Silent tears, running down the sides of Dean’s head.
They kiss, gently, deeply.
“I love you,” Dean whispers, after, mouth close to Cas’ ear, sending a shiver down Cas’ spine. “I love you,” Dean repeats, holding Cas’ head in place so he can’t pull away, can’t look at him.
Cas steps up his thrusts instead, needing to respond in some way, trying to let Dean feel rather than hear his answer.
Dean throws back his head, gasping when Cas hits his prostate again and again. He loosens his hold to give Cas greater leeway when his breathing starts to stutter and all he gets out is: “Cas, ja, oh fuck, I’m…”
Cas feels him clench around him, shudder and tense all over, arc and moan his name when he comes, and it’s the most amazing, beautiful and breathtaking thing he has witnessed in his entire existence. This is Dean at his purest, for once letting himself just feel, giving himself over, clutching Cas’ arms, safe in his hold and gorgeous in his abandon. This is beyond precious, and Cas didn’t know it’s possible to feel this much love for someone, feel it overflow to the point of tears. Orgasm can’t possibly feel this good if you don’t love the person you are having it with, Cas thinks when he feels it barrel into him, feels his groin tighten, then explode in bliss, with him buried deep inside Dean’s body. Dean, who he began loving the moment he put him back together. With who he discovered what loving someone actually feels like. What anguish comes with it. What joy lies in a single smile directed your way, the smallest of touches. The slightest sign of affection. It is Dean who gave him all that. It is Dean who trusted him with this now, after everything.
Cas’ mind is a kaleidoscope of all the moments they have shared, of all that is good and bright in Dean. He holds the man tightly pressed against himself, their bodies still joined, until Dean gives him the slightest of nudges: “Some of us need to breathe, angel.”
Cas feels himself slip out of Dean’s body with a flash of regret. Dean hisses.
“I hurt you.”
“Hell no, you didn’t,” Dean assures him with his trademark smile.
They lie next to each other on the bare floor of the bunker’s map room and it is as near perfect as it can be, Cas realizes. He has Dean’s face right in front of his, and the man is fully in there, in those eyes, those lips. It is Dean who brings up a hand to caress a stray strand of sweaty hair out of his face.
“I love you, too, Dean Winchester.”
Cas hears himself say the words while thinking that he didn’t have to say them. Dean knows. Has known from the start. Or did he?
He hadn’t expected Dean’s face to scrunch as if he were fighting back tears. Then, in pain, before Dean sits up in alarm, holding his arm and cursing.
“What?” Cas is on his knees next to Dean in a flash, and they both watch, eyes wide with awe and disbelief, as the Mark starts to glow, then steam. Not seeping further in, as they both fear, for one heart-stoppingly desperate moment. But dissolving off Dean’s skin, before vanishing into thin air.
Dean rubs the spot as if he just couldn’t believe it. His eyes snap up to meet Cas’, finding equal astonishment there.
“What the …? Cas, what just happened? Did this thing just… Is it gone?”
Cas reaches out, hesitates. Then touches, a caress. Looks up again.
The smile that curls Dean’s lips first, then all but splits his face, is most likely the peak of creation, Cas thinks. Before growing aware that he is likely wearing the very same expression. Because Dean barks out a laugh, and it’s joyous and jubilant, and they are still naked and still on the floor, and then they are kissing again, and this time with hearts light with immeasurable relief.
“How…?” Dean starts to say when they part. Only to shake his head: “Who cares. It’s gone! It’s really gone! – And you’re here.”
Cas smiles, and it’s from the bottom of his heart. “I’ll always be here.”
Dean’s eyes widen. Then he nods: “I know.”