The Night is Long

by Castiel_For_King

Summary:

Cas gets hurt on a hunt. Hurt bad enough that Dean isn't sure he's going to make it through the night. As Dean stands vigil at Cas' bedside, he's forced to confront his feelings and makes an important decision.

Notes:

Many many thanks to the wonderful Bluemaikaartstuff over on tumblr for the gorgeous art for this story! <3

This was pure self-indulgence. I wanted soft!Dean taking care of an injured Cas. This was also supposed to be an attempt at posting something before it felt 'perfect' and my goal had been to write and post it all within a few days....that was several months ago. It still doesn't feel perfect but I'm posting it anyway in an attempt to capture at least some of my original goal...

It wasn’t a sound Dean had ever heard Cas make. Sharp, shocked, and bright with pain, it cut through the room and Dean's eardrums like a knife.

Grimacing in pain, he spun, severing the head of a screeching vampire as it paused in it's lunge for him to cover it's ears against the razor-sharp edge of Cas' voice. In the time it took for the vampire's head to fall and hit the floor, Cas' voice abruptly cut out and Dean looked up to see the angel get dog-piled by five vamps. They took him to the dirty floor through the combined impact of all their weight, scrambling and clawing and screaming for a taste of the angelic blood pumping through his veins. 

Three of them went flying clear across the room with a sweep of Cas' arm while Dean wiped the sweat and blood from his eyes to stagger forward. He tackled one as it loomed over Cas, distracted, and slammed it into the floor, then pushed sharply against the blunt side of his machete with the palm of his hand to sever it's head. He turned in time to see the last vamp straddling Cas like it thought it had the upper hand just ‘cause the angel was on his back.

As Dean scrambled to his feet just in case, Cas grabbed the vamp’s cringey leather jacket with one hand and its throat with the other, his teeth bared in a snarl of either fury or pain. Maybe both. 

He crushed through its neck with blunt force, skin bulging and splitting between his fingers like a bloody water balloon as he gripped it's spine. With a simple twist of his wrist, Cas literally ripped its head off with a sickening wet crunch.

For a second Dean thought everything was ok. His eyes snapped this way and that over Cas, trying to find the injury that had caused that heart-stopping cry of pain, but there was so much vamp blood on him it was impossible to tell what belonged to the gushing headless corpse and what might be coming from Cas.

Just as Dean reached him Cas was struggling to his feet. Then, as if a string inside him had suddenly been cut, he collapsed. Dean's arms darted out, catching his arm and slowing his fall, but it pulled on his coat, revealing a blinding flash of grace too bright to look at directly.

“Fuck!” Dean cursed. Cas' long fingers dug into Dean’s arm too hard. “Easy, Cas…easy…” he lowered the angel back to the floor as gently as he could, one arm around Cas’ shoulders. In the humid, mildewy air of the warehouse, Dean's lungs heaved, struggling after a surprisingly challenging fight. They hadn't been expecting a nest that big.

He fumbled with Cas' coats, trying to find the injury again, hands shaking, anxiety a hot knife in his sternum.

Cas didn’t get hurt like this, Dean thought dazedly. He could count on one hand the amount of times Cas had been hit so hard he couldn’t get back up and this just didn’t feel like it should be one of those times. What could a vampire do to an angel?

His eye caught on the gleam of an angel blade beside the body of a headless vamp. It was coated in blood from the tip to half-way up the pommel. Was it Cas’ blade? Had they managed to get it from him or had they already had the blade to begin with?

When Dean shifted his gaze back to Cas, his stomach dropped through the floor. “No…”

He stared into the shining grace hiding blue eyes. When Cas gasped for air, light shone from his mouth.

Dean placed a bloody hand on Cas' face, tightening the arm he had around his shoulders. “Don’t do this to me, Cas. Don’t - heal it! Come on!”

Cas’ breathing was laboured, his chest rising and falling deep and fast, and blood trickled from the corner of his open mouth.

“Sam!” Dean screamed into the echoing silence of the warehouse, as if there was something his brother could do. Quickly, he slipped his hand under Cas' coats and pressed a hand over the wound in Cas’ ribs, but his stomach flipped sickeningly when his hand wasn’t big enough to cover it all. Under his palm and fingers, the distance between the cut edges of skin was wide and deep.

Cas was staring vacantly straight ahead, mouth open and gasping, grace shining like the rays of the sun through clouds. But it had already been longer than Dean knew it took for an angel to flame out. Alongside his hammering heart, a sliver of hope wedged itself between beats.

Dean lifted his trembling hand and brushed his thumb over Cas’ cheek. If he was fighting, if he was trying to heal, maybe a touch would help ground him, help him focus, give him comfort.

Something, anything.

He wished he knew what the fuck to do.

“What do you need, man?” he muttered desperately.  “You need more juice to heal, you take it. I’m right here. Use my soul. Come on, Cas. Come on, buddy.” He took Cas’ limp hand - the one that had moments ago ripped a head right off a vampire's shoulders - and clutched it to his chest, just under his diaphragm where he’d seen Cas reach in to touch souls before. “Come on,” he muttered, voice catching.

No response. Dean closed his eyes, bowed his head, squeezed Cas’ hand hard enough that their bones creaked, and prayed with all the conviction he had.

Heal it. Heal. You can do it. I’ve seen you shake off way worse than this.

Nothing.

Damn it, Cas. Castiel. You can heal this. DO IT.

Cas wasn't going to be laid low by some nothing vampire. Cas was a hurricane in a glass bottle, a heavenly warrior, a flaming sword and shield in human form. He'd seen Cas come back from the edge of deaths more certain than this, there was no way in heaven or hell that this would end the angel. Dean refused to believe that even for an instant.

When Cas' hand moved weakly, barely a twitch, Dean’s heart leapt into his throat, but he kept his eyes shut, kept his head down, and kept praying.

You can do this. You can fucking do this, I know you can. You’re Castiel. Angle of Thursday. Angel of Saturn. The most bad-ass motherfucker to ever roam this god-damn planet. You’ve got this, Cas.

When Dean dared crack his eyes open again it was to see the light slowly receding from Cas’ eyes and mouth and a ragged gasp of relief tore itself free from the walls of Dean's chest. Through blurring vision, he adjusted his slippery grip on Cas’ bloody hand and huffed a watery laugh.

“Yes! Fuck yes! No vamp is gonna take you out!” He swallowed an unhelpful swell of emotion that threatened to drown him and cleared his throat, desperately awaiting the moment when Cas’ grace backed off enough that Dean could see his eyes again. “Keep going buddy, you’re almost there. You’re doing great. You’re -” Dean’s voice caught and he swallowed. Instead of trying to talk again, he gripped Cas’ hand tighter and tried to ignore the congealing blood squishing between their fingers.

Finally, after what felt like several long minutes, the white light in Cas’ eyes and mouth was gone, but it was obvious that he was riding the knife’s edge between states of consciousness and his breathing was still laboured and shallow. 

But he was fucking alive.

Sam came staggering through the nearest doorway, hair a wild nest in a way that meant a vamp had used it to drag him across the floor.

“Sammy, get the car!” Dean barked raggedly, distracted by his mind spiraling off in all directions about what should happen next. They had to get Cas somewhere safe, somewhere clean, somewhere that had something soft to lay him on and where there wasn't blood and bodies all over the place.

He hastily gathered Cas into his arms, adrenaline making him shaky and uncoordinated.

“Dean, stop! Stop!” Sam ordered urgently, rushing over with his hand outstretched. In his other hand was a gore-encrusted machete. There was a trickle of blood running down his temple and he was still trying to catch his own breath.

“We have to get him to the -”

“We need to asses his injuries before we try to move him.” Sam’s voice was calm but hard-edged and he stared at Dean with his hand on Dean’s shoulder, stopping him from getting up. 

Stopping him from jostling Cas and potentially hurting him more. 

The room and the situation snapped back into place around Dean and he blinked hard with a tight nod. With his heart pounding for attention against his ribs, he carefully lowered Cas back down onto the dirty floor. His eyes were only half open, lips blood-spattered and parted around breaths that were coming too fast and too shallow.

By the time Dean was able to peel his eyes off Cas’ face, Sam had already pulled the side of his trench coat out of the way and was gently easing Cas’ dress shirt out of the waist of his pants. As he gingerly rolled up the hem to expose the left side of Cas’ ribs, both brothers drew a sharp breath.

It was easy enough to picture how such a wound had happened and the noise Cas had made made sense now.

The angel blade had been swung upward, probably as he was twisting to avoid something else, and it had plunged deeply between two ribs as he rotated, caught between them like guide-rails and slicing a clean path all the way back to his shoulder blade.

Dean didn’t know how something the size of the Chrysler building fit into a human body, but he could guess at the amount of damage a path like that would cut on the massive creature crammed inside.

“Jesus…” Sam muttered in shock. Then he gave his head a shake and pulled the tattered shirt back down over the wound. “Ok…ok, we can't do anything about that here. I…" he dragged a dirty hand over his mouth, smearing blood and god only knew what else into his skin. "I don't know if we can do anything for that at all. We might have to take him to the hospital." They shared brief look before Sam swallowed, "But nothing can happen until we get him to the car. You take his shoulders, I’ll get his feet.”

“I can carry -”

“Dean, if your adrenaline gives out halfway there and you drop him -”

“Yeah, alright. Ok. Ok.”

When Cas decides he won’t be moved, he can turn himself into a marble statue filled with lead. Half-conscious, he’s shockingly light. Lighter than Dean would have thought a hurricane in a glass bottle would be. Even after the adrenaline crash, he was fairly confident he’d be able to at least get Cas to the car. Still, it was definitely easier with two people. Cas was just under six feet tall and felt proportionately heavy.

The hot and sticky air made an already difficult task that much more taxing. Now that Dean had calmed down as much as he could, given the situation, the heat and humidity was once again pressing down on his awareness. Every laboured breath felt like trying to breathe underwater and sweat was dripping down his face, pulling diluted blood into his eyes and making them sting.

It was night and the stars were probably out behind the layer of cloud that was trapping the soggy summer air against the ground and there wasn't even a whisper of a breeze to cool the sweat on his skin. All around them cicadas and crickets screamed, incessant and shrill and grating on Dean's already frayed nerves.

Despite the strength-sapping heat, getting Cas to the car was easy; maneuvering him into the back seat when he kept making soft, heart-breaking cries of pain was the hard part. But eventually Cas was laid out in the seat, fully unconscious now, which Dean was trying really hard not to panic about. Still, the drive back to the motel was spent with Dean nearly hanging over the front seat to check Cas’ pulse every few minutes while Sam pushed the limits of the local speed laws.

Cas’ normally tan skin was pale from blood loss and the stark red of vampire blood on his face wasn’t helping. When Dean checked the folded towel wedged between the seat and Cas' wound it was damp.

Getting him out of the car was easier than getting him in, because he was out cold and not making any of those sounds that made Dean want to punch himself in the face. Once they were back in the safety of their motel room, they quickly removed Cas’ coats and shirt and Dean was gingerly wiping away the worst of the blood with a damp facecloth while Sam set up the first aid supplies.

Though the cut was long and horrifically deep, it was a clean slice in the skin and would be easy to stitch. They argued briefly about whether they should pack the wound, stitch it, or go to the hospital. In the end, they decided to stitch it when they realized the bleeding had already slowed, oozing out the cut edges of skin instead of gushing like it had been.

Dean let his eyes skip over the flashes of exposed bone and the empty gap between the two ribs that should definitely be full of connective tissue. He tried not to think of the lung that would be right on the other side of that, or about how Cas’ breathing had been shallow and laboured back in the old factory.

Without saying anything, Sam got to work - his stitches were always neater anyway and they both knew it - and Dean stayed out of the way, dabbing at fresh blood when it trickled into Sam’s way. It was a tense thirty minutes with nothing but the sound of the ancient air conditioner in the window, wheezing and clunking and making more noise than it was cold air. Dean's thin tshirt clung to his sweaty skin, soaked through a taking up more of his awareness than it otherwise would.

The room had one lamp and one overhead light, neither of which were as bright as they would have liked. Still, they'd patched up wounds in worse places and when there was a neat row of curved stitches and no more blood seeping through, both brothers sat back with a deep breath. While Sam washed his hands in the bathroom, Dean carefully tried to wipe away some more blood, but a lot of it had dried by now and was stubbornly stuck to Cas’ skin. Red smears and smudged crimson hand-prints were a macabre finger-painting over most of Cas’ torso, and splattered across his neck and face were the dried streaks of arterial spray from the vamp he'd decapitated.

With his heart twisting, Dean recalled the dog pile of vampires crawling over the angel like rats over fresh meat. They knew well enough now how enticing angel blood was to vampires. It didn’t smell all that different when it was still inside a vein but something seemed to happen if it hit the open air. A wound like that in Cas’ side would have been an irresistible beacon to already half-feral minds.

Even with six of them on him, even with a gaping wound in his side, Cas had flung them off and, without his blade, had simply ripped the head right off one.

Dean twitched, his blood running hot and cold in equal measure at the memory. Cas didn’t get the opportunity to showcase his strength much and Dean suspected that he actually tried to downplay it as much as possible.

For a hurricane in a bottle, Cas sure did keep a low profile. He always hunted with the minimum required violence, but the potential for it was always there, and it rumbled deep and unsettling behind the thin barrier of his skin like water behind a dam. And Cas’ finger was always hovering over the flood gate latch.

Despite all the absolutely bad-ass - and sometimes terrifying - things Dean had seen Cas do, he knew in his bones that he’d never seen Castiel, Angel of the Lord, running at full throttle. He’d never seen the Castiel that could - and would - level a town like a ruptured dam.

To be honest, he didn’t think he wanted to. The millimeters by which Cas sometimes opened that floodgate were enough to give Dean a vague idea of who and what was sitting in the back seat of the impala or on the bench beside him at the diner.

And the thing was…

The thing was that Dean wasn’t scared of Cas. He really wasn’t. It was that he knew Cas was scared of him. Cas was worried that if he got too big and too scary that Dean would run. So the only times he opened those floodgates was when he absolutely had to. Like today. Crushing, one handed, with enough blunt force that the skin and bone underneath just exploded? Ripping out a spine and tearing muscles and tendons apart with a casual movement of the wrist? 

Scary? To most people, yeah. But Dean wasn’t most people.

His gaze lingered on the long column of Cas’ neck, to where he could see the faintest movement of the skin over his pulse point. It was hard to believe a few millimeters of human flesh was enough to contain something like Cas. 

If Dean hadn’t already known there was a maelstrom of grace rushing just underneath Cas’ throat like an underground river, he’d have never known Cas wasn’t just some guy. Some guy dressed in office worker clothes. That were too big for him. 

This close and with nothing forcing him to look away, Dean realized just how much of Cas got swallowed up by that stupid collared shirt. His bare shoulders were broad and square, arms long and lightly muscled, and his waist tapered into a flat stomach, hip-bones poking out just above the belt of his ridiculous dress pants.

Hunting in business casual. Dean huffed, ignoring the buzz of fading adrenaline in his toes and fingertips. The concept of Cas as a being was already a little ridiculous, and the oversized suit and tie were suddenly only adding to it. This guy could level a town with a blink and couldn't be bothered to just think his clothes into fitting right.

Though, maybe he just didn't know they didn't fit him properly. How would an angel, who'd probably not been in a human body since they'd all worn togas, know how a suit was supposed to fit?

Dean looked down to where Cas’ hand was laying on the mattress. It was the only skin he ever really saw below Cas’ neck. His wrist was delicate looking - though maybe that was because he had big hands. Gently, Dean covered Cas’ long fingers, feeling the roughness of dried blood where he wished he could feel soft skin.

Lately it was starting to feel like they were all always covered in blood.

The bathroom door clicked open and Dean pulled his hand away, sitting back in the kitchen chair he’d placed between the beds. 

“How’s he doing?” Sam asked as he dried his hands on a towel.

“Same as he was four minutes ago.”

Dean stared at Cas’ closed eyes, replaying memories of all the times he’d stared through blinding white grace into wide eyes and gaping mouths with the heavy weight of an angel blade in his palm.

“Thought he might have started coming around…he’s never down for long.” Sam pursed his lips, tossing the towel over the chair that was still at the table.

“This was a big one,” Dean needlessly explained. “And I’m pretty sure stitching it up didn’t do shit. We patched up his armor but he’s still bleeding out in there.”

If there was anything they could do for that, it was well beyond their knowledge. 

A few times, Dean had tried to ask. What do we do if you get hurt? How do I help you? How do I save you?

Questions like those had been burning holes through Dean’s brain more and more lately. Hunts sometimes got a little hairy. Too hairy. And Cas wasn’t indestructible, he just acted like he was, and whenever Dean tried to bring it up, Cas would brush it off or change the subject. Once he had straight up left the room.

We’re gonna have a serious talk when you wake up, angel, Dean prayed, somewhat threateningly, as he glared at the side of Cas’ blood-spattered face.

It was already midnight, but because it was July it had only been dark for a few hours, and the record high temperatures remained, cloying and clinging to their skin and lungs as tangibly as the sweat and blood. 

Sam had already taken his shower and left to scavenge some food, so Dean peeled himself from the wooden chair and shuffled his aching muscles to the bathroom. The adrenaline and its pain-masking properties were well gone, and in the cloying heat his bones throbbed and exhaustion was creeping up behind him.

With a grimace, he pulled his damp shirt off and turned on the shower. Surprisingly, the water pressure was strong, but it seemed like a futile attempt at getting clean because the second he turned the water off he was already sweating again. He retook his place by Cas’ bedside in nothing but boxers and a fresh tshirt ‘cause it was just too damn hot for anything else.

Except socks, ‘cause no way was he letting his bare feet touch the grungy carpet of their forty-dollars-a-night motel room. 

Angling his chair towards the tv, Dean propped his feet up on the side of Cas’ mattress and left it playing low on some nature documentary because he figured that was something calm for the background of Cas' awareness. He watched a lioness prowl around her sun-baked territory for all of ten seconds before his eyes swung back to Cas and lingered on his boots. 

The air conditioner was doing its best, wheezing a thin trickle of cool air into the sticky room. 

Dean stood and carefully slipped Cas’ boots off, putting them with his and Sam’s by the door. His eyes roamed Cas uneasily as he made his way back to his chair. Normally covered neck to toe in several layers, Cas looked uncomfortably exposed to the open room.

Vulnerable was the word that popped into Dean’s head. 

When the door opened abruptly, Dean got halfway to his feet before he realized the gun he was reaching for wasn’t in the waistband of his boxers and that it was just Sam anyway. 

His brother gave him a shrewd look as he set the take-out bags on the table. “Got you a burger from a food truck by that gas station a few miles back. It was the only place open so, uh…eat at your own risk.”

It was snuggly wrapped but Dean still huffed when Sam tossed it to him. 

“And I got two burritos for Mr. Comatose over there in case he wants them when he’s up.”

The prickly edges around Dean’s attitude softened a bit.

Around 2AM the temperature finally started to drop enough that Dean could think about trying to fall asleep. Sam was already out, the comforter and sheet in a ball on the floor at the end of the bed while he star-fished his way into a REM cycle.

Dean was still sitting in the kitchen chair by Cas’ side. Twenty minutes ago Cas had briefly woken and rolled sluggishly onto his uninjured side to face Dean, though it had been clear he hadn’t been fully conscious. Still, Dean had leaned forward, mumbled words of assurance that Cas was in a safe place and could keep resting just in case Cas could hear him.

Since Dean had started paying attention, he’d noticed that Cas was quick to brush off injuries as insignificant even when they were clearly causing him trouble. His eyes might droop but would never close. He might falter but never fell. He never slouched, never slowed, never stopped.

It was as if he was incapable of resting except for rare times, like now, when the option was taken from him entirely. Even then, Cas would stay down only until his body healed enough for him to regain consciousness, then he’d be up and on alert again, and he found himself wondering if that was just something inherent to his species or if it had been beaten into them.

As the air cooled around him, Dean’s eyes began to droop and though he was definitely going to have to force Cas to rest later, Dean felt himself resisting his own rest now. And that wasn’t good because when he and Cas inevitably got into a fight about it, Dean wanted to be able to point out that rest was important without being a hypocrite.

So he shuffled over to the sofa and sat down, trying to fluff the pathetically small pillow. He leaned in close, curling his lip at the splotchy stains coloring the fabric, then tossed it away and grabbed his coat instead. It wasn’t the first night it had served as a pillow and it wouldn’t be the last. The hard part was trying not to think about the stain producing things that had probably happened on this sofa over the decades while he tried to get comfortable. 

He stared across the dark room and wondered how much bacteria could get through a cotton-poly blend tshirt from Walmart.

He closed his eyes and tried to smooth the grimace of disgust from his face, he was getting too old for this shit. He wanted his own sheets, that he knew were clean because he washed them himself every Sunday.

It took twenty minutes to stop thinking about the odds of waking up with ringworm, and he was riding the edge of sleep when he heard it: a soft gasp, just a hitch in Cas’ breathing between Sam’s soft snores.

Wide awake near-instantly, Dean sat up and swung his feet to the floor, listening. He couldn’t see Cas’ face, just the outline of his loosely curled form in the dim light. The curtains over the table were pulled-to but diffused light from the parking lot was filtering in. 

Dean hadn’t put a blanket over him, given how hot it was, and the orange glow from outside highlighted the smooth curve of his bare shoulder and arm, as well as the rumpled fabric bunched up at his hip where he’d loosely pulled his knees toward his chest.

Another gasp, a soft sound that was out of place in Cas’ throat.

Dean moved to the chair between the beds and flicked the lamp on. Sam grumbled in his sleep and turned his head away but didn't wake up and Cas didn’t react at all. Dean’s stomach dropped at the sheen of sweat on his face and chest. His breathing was shallow again too and the long line of stitches looked angry and inflamed.

Gently, Dean pressed the back of his fingers to Cas’ head and hissed. That was one hell of a fever.

Without hesitation, Dean turned and gave Sam’s shoulder a rough shake, blocking the instinctive swing of his fist. 

“Cas has a wicked fever, I need you to - dude, wake up - I need you to go to that gas station a few miles back and get some ice.”

Sam was up, alert, and pulling on his boots within just a few seconds, casting a concerned glance at Cas as Dean gently rolled him onto his back.

“I’ll be right back,” Sam promised before closing the door behind him.

Dean took the two hand towels in the washroom and ran the cold water for a full minute to make sure it was as cool as possible, but mid-July in Enid, Oklahoma didn’t leave much in the way of cool anything. On the way back to Cas, Dean double-checked that the air conditioner was on the coldest setting and held his hand in front of it. He shook his head. It was barely moving any air at all and, despite it being well into the night now, the heat just wouldn’t break, and that was not going to do a feverish angel any good.

He hurried back to Cas’ side.

Dean had found himself wondering - a lot, recently - what Cas’ skin felt like. Angels were so hard and cold, so brutal and unfeeling, but he’d touched Cas enough times to know that he had just as much give as any human body. When he wanted to, that is. He’d hugged the angel on a few occasions and Cas had been solid bone and soft muscle under the squeeze of Dean’s arms, but the layers and layers of clothing had made it hard to tell if he was warm, too.

Driven by a curiosity that bordered on fixation, Dean had been finding excuses to touch Cas’ bare skin. Just to see how it felt. Given that Cas wrapped himself in more layers than any hunter, the opportunities hadn’t been plenty. He’d adjusted the collar of Cas’ dress shirt once, making some comment about being presentable for the task of questioning witnesses while he pretended to have trouble getting it to sit right just so he could feel how warm Cas’ skin was against the back of his fingers.

On another occasion, they’d been in Nebraska investigating a priest with ties to some shady magic. Cas had started fidgeting restlessly the minute they walked through the front doors, shifting on his feet, eyes snapping around and head turning to read lines of corruption woven through the building that only he could see. He informed the brothers that the holy space had been twisted and tainted, and as Sam interviewed the priest, Cas stood beside one of the pews and glared at the pristine white sheet and polished gold candle holders on the altar at the front of the church.

His long fingers had gripped the back of a pew, knuckles white and wood creaking, so Dean had stepped in front of him and blocked his view of the altar, gently covering Cas’ hand with his own. Cas’ brow had smoothed and and his eyes had widened, snapping up to Dean’s face.

“You ok?”

Immediately, Cas had schooled his expression into something neutral and impossible to read. “The faith of his congregation is strong. He’s using the power of their belief to fuel his…” Cas’ gaze flicked sideways like something had suddenly caught his attention and focused on an ornate cross hanging high to their right. It looked expensive. “The corrupted power of faith smells…rotten and it feels…” Cas had trailed off, swallowing, eyes still stuck on the cross.

Dean had pried Cas’ hand off the back of the pew and ushered him out into the fresh air. He used the excuse that Cas needed something to steady him, now that he didn’t have the pew to lean on, and Dean had let the pads of his fingers feel how soft and warm the inside of Cas’ wrist and palm was. 

Anyway, Dean knew Cas’ skin was soft, he knew Cas was warm, so he shouldn’t feel the need to keep checking whenever the opportunity presented itself.

Still, his stomach fluttered when he carefully moved Cas’ arm so that it was straight and then he studiously kept his eyes and hands fixed on the task at hand, not letting either deviate to any part of Cas that wasn’t necessary to cooling him down. 

The damp cloth was a small relief in the palm of his own hand and he swirled it around the curve of Cas’ deltoid then down over his bicep, the crook of his elbow, and then his forearm, leaving his tan skin glistening between streaks of dried blood in the dim light.

Next he wiped down Cas’ pectorals, enough to spread some cooling water around but certainly not allowing himself to linger. He was careful around the stitches, giving them a wide berth and gently pressing his fingertips to the angry red skin. The injured area was abnormally hot. 

When Dean stood to move around to the other side of the bed, Cas suddenly tossed his head and arched his back with a hiss of pain.

“Whoa, hey…” Dean murmured as he placed the damp cloth over Cas’ shoulder. 

Any noise stayed behind Cas’ clenched jaw but his hands curled into white knuckled fists. It looked like he was bracing against increasing pain, but before Dean could panic Cas abruptly relaxed again with a sigh of relief. His eyes hadn’t opened once. 

Dean pressed a hand to his forehead, noting that his temperature had risen in just a few short minutes to something beyond what a human would be hospitalized for.

“Fuck,” Dean muttered. With nothing else to do, he quickly wiped down Cas’ other arm and went to rinse the towel out. The water trickling down the drain was rusty red.

When he came back, Cas was curled up on his good side again, shivering in dry skin. Dean wasted no time wiping down Cas’ arm but didn’t get any farther than that when Cas’ eyes cracked open and he sluggishly tried to roll away from the cold towel, teeth chattering.

He stopped Cas from rolling onto his stitches and tried again to wipe him down with the cloth but Cas’ hand darted out with shocking accuracy and stilled Dean’s wrist in a bruising hold.

“Easy, buddy,” Dean said calmly through a wince. He could feel the tiny bones in his wrist grinding together and his heart pounded in his chest, hoping Cas was weak enough that he at least couldn’t crush Dean’s bones into a fine powder.

Cas’ eyes were fever-bright but luckily there was no sign of grace bleeding through. As calmly as he could, Dean slowly tried to wedge his fingers under Cas’. “Let go, Cas. Let go. It's ok.”

It was usually pointless to try and talk to someone with such a high fever, but Cas’ eyes found his face and stayed there, a frown drawing Cas’ brows together.

“Ver…ver adonai ol?”

Shit. 

Dean’s enochain was beyond rusty so there was no point in trying to answer whatever Cas had just asked, the concerning part was that Cas was speaking enochain at all. Before he could figure out how to proceed, Cas’ eyes were closed again and he was breathing evenly, fingers going slack around Dean’s wrist.

Releasing a careful breath, Dean gingerly tested the range of movement in his wrist and then resumed wiping Cas down while pins and needles tickled his fingers.

He hoped the sponge-bath was helping at least a little, but it didn’t seem promising that Cas wasn’t speaking English and it was only a few more minutes before Cas started moving again. He twisted and squirmed on the bed, making those same soft little gasps and whimpers of pain that felt like knives in Dean’s heart.

“Ulsi,” Cas groaned while he turned his face away, trying to twist out of Dean’s grip, but he seemed to have lost whatever strength had left a bruise blooming around Dean’s wrist. “Agais-ah ol. Ulsi. Na’rah.”

Dean only knew one of those words and it was ulsi, which meant stop.

“Shh, you’re safe, Cas.” He placed a steadying hand on Cas’ shoulder but Cas jerked out from under his fingers.

Cas’ eyes flew open and Dean would probably never know what his fevered mind was showing him, but Cas stared at him in a sort of resigned but open fear that had Dean scrambling away from the beside, wanting to put distance between Cas and whatever nightmare Cas thought he was. 

Breathing fast and shallow, Cas’ hand reached up to grip the pillow under his head, the other balled into a fist against the headboard like he was gripping an invisible chain.

Dean was breathing hard too. His body was primed to fight whatever was hurting Cas even though his brain knew there was no way to kill a hallucination. Slowly, he approached the bed again, heart thudding in his chest. He didn’t dare touch Cas, didn’t dare give tactile shape to whatever monster Cas thought he was.

“It’s ok,” he whispered, soft, gentle, trying to be the opposite of whatever Cas was currently bracing himself for. “You’re ok, Cas, it’s just me.”

It wasn’t working. Cas turned his head away and screwed his eyes shut, muscles slowly flexing, jaw clenched against whatever hallucination was hurting him. He strained against invisible restraints until a raspy cry from his parched throat escaped his hold on it.

Dean’s heart ached. These soft sounds of distress were not something he'd imagined Cas capable of making and a shockingly violent urge to rip into the things hurting him took Dean by surprise. It was made all the more frustrating by the fact there was nothing to rip into and since not touching him wasn’t helping any, he reached up to gently brush his fingers through Cas’ damp hair.

Cas flinched away. “Ol aboa’pri A-Ascha, Zachariah.”

Dean froze.

“Ol aboa’pri Ascha,” Cas panted, then whimpered. “Ol a-aboa’pri Ascha…”

Helplessly, Dean resumed wiping Cas down with the wet towel, nearly chewing a hole through his lip every time Cas flinched under his touch. He seemed stuck in the space between nightmare and hallucination, eyelids fluttering.

Dean had to get his temperature down and he was about two minutes away from just scooping the angel up and carrying him bridal style into the shower. But after a few more minutes of fast and shallow breathing, the cries of pain went soft and Cas sunk back into a fitful sleep.

There really was no point in thinking about it and Dean was trying his best not to. The problem was, he knew all to well what torture looked like and after hearing Zachariah’s name, didn’t have to guess at what Cas’ boiling brain had cooked up for him. With shaking hands, Dean stood in front of the little sink in the bathroom and wrung the cloth out again. The water was only pale pink now.

Unsettled wasn’t the word he was looking for, but something itchy and slick was under his skin, pulling down the corners of his mouth. 

The industrial strength pile of the high traffic carpet scratched through his cheap cotton socks and against his skin like sandpaper as he traveled back from the bathroom with the freshly rinsed towel. Dean paused a few feet from the end of the bed. 

He’d never seen Cas look scared like that before. Had never, until now, spared a thought for if Cas could even get scared. Not like that. Sure he'd seen Cas worried, concerned, anxious…but not terrified. Not fearful.

Cas looked small and vulnerable in nothing but his pants and socks. Out cold, half-naked, with a near-fatal wound…this was a soft pink underbelly to Cas’ usual angelic facade. He walked and talked and fought like nothing could stop him and Dean had always known that wasn’t true but it was still sobering on the rare occasion that something got a hit in on Cas.

Dean’s heart ached with how helpless he felt.

The rumble of the impala moved Dean toward the kitchen sink instead of his chair by the bed. He plugged the sink with the cracked and decrepit stopper and began filling it with the coldest water the pipes could manage. Within just a few seconds beads of condensation had coated the neck of the tap.

Sam opened the door quietly, a large bag of ice under each arm. 

“Fill up the bathroom sink with the other one,” Dean whispered, tearing a hole in the bag Sam handed to him and submerging it under the water that had already gathered so it made less noise when he upended the bag.

“Actually, I got ziplocks,” Sam whispered back. He pulled a smushed box of them out of his back pocket. “We should make some ice packs.”

A genius, that’s what his brother was. As Sam went about filling the little plastic baggies with ice at the table, Dean dunked the hand towel in the ice water, much happier with the temperature of it now. It might actually accomplish something. He grabbed the second hand towel from the bathroom and dunked it too.

After wringing them out, he folded one neatly and laid it over Cas’ forehead, then took his seat and resumed running the other towel over his skin. A few minutes later and Sam strategically placed a bag of ice in each of Cas’ armpits and another two behind his knees. The final two he put on the mattress at Cas’ sides and they each placed Cas’ arms so that his wrists were sitting on the ice.

Dean sat back and released a breath. Cas’ breathing was more even and he looked to be sleeping peacefully, for now.

“Any changes while I was gone?” Sam asked, voice low, as he took a seat on the remaining kitchen chair.

“Yeah. Yeah, uh, do you know what Ol aboa’pri Ascha means?”

Sam’s eyes shut at once, one corner of his mouth pinching as he shuffled through the giant filing system in his brain. “Uhh, ‘I serve God’. I think.”

Dean’s eyes slid down to Cas’ face, one side lit from the lamp on the table between the beds.

Stop. I serve God, Zachariah. I serve God…

Dean nodded. “He was having some kind of nightmare.” Sam’s silent gaze burned, so Dean cleared his throat and sat back. “Anyway, you should try and get some more sleep.”

But Sam waved him off, “I slept for a few hours already. No way I’ll get back to sleep now.” He pivoted in his chair and opened his laptop. After a few seconds of typing in the glow of his screen, he said, “You should get some sleep though. I’ll let you know if Cas wakes up or something else happens.”

With no sensible reason to argue, Dean merely nodded. He checked Cas’ stitches again, pressing gently around the edges of them. It might have been excessive to check on them again so soon, if Cas healed like a human. He had hoped there would have been some improvement in the wound by now for an angel, but the skin was still inflamed and hot to the touch. 

Was the heat around the wound from trauma, infection, or just because he was running a crazy high fever? Dean frowned, wishing he understood what could cause an angel to get a fever.

It occurred to him they hadn’t doused the wound in whiskey like they normally did.

“Can angels get infections?”

Sam paused, looking over at Dean with a contemplative frown. “I don’t know.”

Dean added it to the list of things they don’t know about Cas.

The mattress of the bed Sam had been using was thin and Dean could feel springs poking into his butt and back. With Cas’ soft breathing too far away to hear, especially through the wheezing air conditioner, Dean kept rolling his head against the pillow to stare at the rise and fall of his chest.

Cas’ was on his back again but his face was turned towards Dean a little and his brow was smooth. For once there was no frown of pain or worry or stress. Sleep had smoothed the lines around his eyes. 

Jimmy Novak had been young when he let Cas in, Dean realized with a startled blink. In sleep, Cas’ face was that of a mid-thirty something guy with a normal life and normal amounts of stress. When Cas woke again, all the hard lines of an angelic soldier would change something about Jimmy Novak’s face. Change it back into Castiel’s face.

But, Dean supposed, Cas was the only one in there now. Had been for a long time. That meant the softness Dean could see now was Cas, was something he was capable of being, if given the chance. He was just so rarely given the chance.

His eyes trailed down to where Cas’ arm was bent at the elbow, hand resting on his flat stomach, then further still to where his left knee was bent at a gentle angle.

He looked…comfortable. Human. Achingly touchable.

Dean rolled his head back to stare at the splotchy ceiling and quickly closed his eyes to try and snuff out the mental image of how some of those stains might have even gotten up there. For a while he drifted in and out of light sleep, never touching anything deep enough for real rest. He was skirting the edges of a dream that might lead to something embarrassing when he heard Sam calling his name.

He was up and at Cas’ beside before he was even fully conscious, stumbling around the end of the bed and cracking his shin painfully against the leg of the kitchen chair. Hissing and cursing under his breath, Dean fell into the chair heavily, watching as Sam placed a freshly damp towel over Cas’ forehead from the other side of the bed.

“He’s still burning up. It just won't break.” Sam told him in a hushed voice.

Cas’ breathing was fast and shallow again and the peaceful look on his face from earlier had been scratched with lines of pain around his eyes and mouth. He squirmed against the mattress, fingers clenching and unclenching. At least this time he didn’t look like he was being tortured, it more looked like he was deeply uncomfortable.

Not hard to understand why.

“I don’t know what to do,” Sam muttered, frustrated. “I don’t even know what’s wrong and it's a million goddamn degrees in here. That can’t be helping.”

“It’s ok, Sam,” Dean assured him while he resisted the urge to wipe at the thin film of sweat on his own face. “Let’s just…try to keep him as cool as possible. We got more ice?”

Lips pressed tightly, Sam stepped back. “Yeah, a bit. I’ll make up some more bags.” He gathered the ones they'd placed around Cas a couple hours ago that were now all water and emptied them into the small sink in the kitchenette. There was a mini fridge but it didn't have a freezer.

Dean glanced at the clock on the bedside table. 4AM. It had only been a few hours since the warehouse. Or factory. Dean could never remember, they all just blended together these days.

From under the towel, a fat drop of water rolled down Cas’ temple and beads of sweat started gathering like dew on his face as his fever spiked again. With nothing else on hand, Dean grabbed his flannel shirt from the back of the chair and used the sleeve to dab at Cas’ cheek.

Cas jerked his head away with a hiss through his teeth, one hand coming up to weakly smack Dean’s away.

“Don’t…touch me,” Cas growled murderously. If the situation weren’t so worrying, it would have been funny to see him scowling with his eyes still firmly closed. 

It wasn’t clear if he was conscious or not but at least he was speaking English.

“Yeah, what’re you gonna do, huh?” Dean asked softly, dabbing again at Cas’ skin, this time the side of his neck.

Cas sighed sleepily, face relaxing “I’ll kill you.”

Sam snorted over at the table.

A grin stretched Dean’s face. “Sure you will, buddy.” He took the cloth from Cas' head and used it to wipe away more beads of sweat before they could fall. “We should try to get some gatorade into him or as soon as he’s…lucid,” Dean observed. 

He swiped the towel down the front of Cas’ neck.

Cas’ eyes flew open, grace pulsing through the ring of his irises. Faster than Dean could register, Cas scrambled away from him and Dean managed to grab him under the arm just quickly enough to keep him from tumbling over the edge of the bed. Weakly, Cas was trying to pull himself free but his strength was failing.

It was horrifying to realize that this traumatized thing had been inside Cas all this time, carefully concealed, right under the surface. 

“Cas…Cas, it’s ok -”

But it was no use. It was easy to see, with his irises lit up, how quickly Cas’ feverish eyes were snapping around the room, trying to land on the shadows haunting him.

Then, as if in slow motion, Dean saw in real time Cas switch from flight to fight when he realized he wasn’t going to get out of Dean’s hold and it was mesmerizing to actually see him switch gears. His brows, which had been drawn up in fear, dove into a furious scowl. His teeth, having been parted around a cry, clacked together like the snap of a furious dog as he growled - a deep, rumbling, inhuman sound. And his eyes - his eyes ceased their panicked sweep of the room and locked onto Dean’s face like a sniper taking aim.

“Now just -”

Cas lunged at him. Luckily for Dean, he was fairly weak now, the fever and injury having sapped most of his strength. That being said, he was still almost six feet tall and weighed enough to knock Dean off balance. If it hadn’t been for Sam grabbing Cas around the waist he might have managed to knock Dean to the floor.

“Watch his ribs!” Dean snapped, seeing Sam’s arm squeezing around the row of stitches.

Cas was already losing steam, sagging in Sam’s arms to the point where Dean rushed back over to help ease him onto the mattress. He was breathing shallowly again, eyes only half open, grace dimly lighting the ring of his irises. Sweat was once again beading on his brow so Sam went to soak the towels again and Dean grabbed the closest thing - his flannel, thrown over the corner of the mattress - to wipe his skin.

As he wiped away the beads of sweat and felt his heart rate calm, Cas’ breathing slowed as well, and he turned his face towards the shirt Dean was using, inhaling through his nose, then again even deeper.

A wrinkle of confusion appeared between his brows and his eyes opened just enough to see. “...Dean?”

Heart skipping its next beat, Dean released a gust of breath in relief and leaned forward, gently placing his hand on Cas’ arm. “Yeah, Cas, it’s me.”

Cas’ eyes stared through him, stuck somewhere between dream and reality as the grace in them faded. “Where…am I?”

“We’re at the motel. You’re safe.”

“Why are we…at a motel?” Cas asked him meekly, an adorable scrunch of confusion between his brows that was making it impossible for Dean to keep the soft smile off his lips. Cas' cheeks were rosy from the fever and his blue eyes were glassy and disoriented and that soft underbelly that he always tried so hard to hide was once again exposed to Dean.

It made Dean want to do insane things like wrap the angel in blankets and cook him tomato rice soup and brush that curl of sweaty hair off his forehead.

He gruffly cleared his throat instead, as if he could shift the complex emotions lodged in his chest.

Sam quietly passed Dean a freshly dampened towel and Dean pressed it to Cas’ forehead. Cas moaned, closing his eyes in relief and Sam placed fresh bags of ice under Cas’ wrists and behind his knees, lifting his arms and legs carefully while Cas looked like he wasn't even aware of being moved.

“Remember the hunt?” Dean continued softly, voice just above a whisper, “We found a vamp nest in Enid, Oklahoma. We took them out but you got…” Dean’s eyes darted to the ten inch long row of stitches. He swallowed. “You got hurt.”

Cas’ eyes opened slowly, barely tethered to the moment. “Oh.”

“But you’re gonna be fine,” Dean assured him firmly. He flipped the towel over and pressed it to the side of Cas’ neck. When Cas sighed and closed his eyes again, something settled in Dean’s chest.

"I don't feel well."

“You just gotta rest,” Dean managed to say past the constriction in his throat. He moved the cold towel around to the other side of Cas’ neck. “I’m gonna - I’m gonna watch over you.”

Cas’ next words were slurred with sleep. “...thought that was creepy.”

Dean huffed a laugh, something light pushing away from of the pressure in his heart. “Even delirious and half-conscious you’re sassin’ me. Shut up and rest, smart ass.”

“Yes, Dean,” Cas sighed, body and face going soft as he drifted obediently back to sleep.

Dean leaned back in his chair and released a careful breath. He looked down at the shirt in his hands, then back at Cas. He’d leaned into Dean’s flannel, chased it even in sleep, and a single whiff of it had pushed back the feverish nightmares in his head.

Just a coincidence, was the voice of reason and self-preservation in Dean’s head. He kneaded the shirt in his hands, eyes on the literal sleeping angel in front of him.

The gooey feelings coursing through him now were not new. In fact at this point he was pretty familiar with them. What was new was so many of them showing up all at once, filling Dean with warm, sugary, chick-flicky nonsense from his toes to the tips of his hair.

Sam muttered something about going to get more ice.

He chose not to comment on his brother’s stealthy exit, instead he focused on the little lines already growing between Cas’ eyebrows and around his eyes. Of the way his long fingers were starting to clutch at the sheets as a new nightmare took hold.

Face heating and something warm blooming hopefully in his abdomen, Dean shuffled forward to the edge of his seat and carefully moved his shirt closer to Cas’ face.

His brow smoothed immediately and the white-knuckle grip on the sheet loosened. 

He turned his face towards the shirt. 

Dean’s lips twitched with a soft smile but soon his arm was sore from holding the shirt out and he sat back again, biting his lip. Cas was obviously getting something from the shirt, maybe the scent was grounding, a way for his mind to anchor itself in reality. But Dean couldn’t sit here all morning and hold it out for him.

Quietly, he put the flannel back on and buttoned it up, grimacing when the fabric pulled at his sweaty arms. Then, carefully so as not to jostle Cas, Dean laid out beside him on his back and went still, but Cas didn’t so much as stir and Dean wasn’t sure what to do next. His face was glowing red.

This had been a ridiculous idea. A selfish indulgence. He’d been foolish to think -

Cas twitched like he’d been hit, shoulders hunching around a soft gasp and Dean immediately turned towards him.

“Hey…” he called softly. He gently maneuvered his arm under Cas' shoulders, then reached across Cas’ chest and pulled at his arm to roll him over and tuck him up against Dean’s side.

Cas’ cheek was resting on Dean’s chest, his soft hair tickled Dean’s chin and cheek and, scarcely daring to breathe, Dean pulled Cas closer against his side with his heart thumping in his chest.

There must be something that made an angel’s fever more extreme than a human's because having Cas pressed up against him was like laying in front of the open door of a wood stove. Given that it was already disgustingly hot, having a feverish angel touching him from head to toe was deeply uncomfortable. 

But Cas’ weight was comforting and he was once again sleeping peacefully so Dean would lay here until the heat made him brain-dead. 

When Cas’ hand sluggishly slid up to rest over his heart, Dean had to swallow down a tidal wave of unhelpful - not to mention wildly inappropriate - feelings about it.

He was mostly successful and it was easy to shove aside the rest of the noise in his head. With Cas finally, finally in his arms, Dean was able to take a full breath for the first time in years. He released it carefully, closing his eyes to try and memorize every second of this for the terrible moment when it had to end. He stroked his thumb against Cas’ bare skin, turned his head slightly to inhale the smell of rain and salt coming off his hair, and gingerly covered Cas’ hand with his own.

He hadn’t known Cas could be this soft, this touchable, but he was molded against Dean’s side like he belonged there and his eyes prickled with a sudden awareness of lost time. They should have been doing this from day one.

Despite what people might think, Dean wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t unaware of his own feelings. He’d been attracted to Cas for a long time and part of him was convinced Cas might be attracted to him too. Another part of him - the bigger, scarier part that sounded a lot like John Winchester when it hissed in his ear - had refused to acknowledge either until recently. 

Loving someone like he loved Cas was horrifically dangerous for both of them. But as Sam had - very drunkenly - pointed out a few months ago: everyone already used Dean and Cas against each other.

“Everyone already knows, Dean,” Sam slurred with a pissy pinch in his lips.

So what was Dean hiding from then? If his excuse had been that his weakness for Cas would be exploited, Sam was right, that was already happening. And Dean knew it. So all that was left was for him to be goddamn honest with himself, to look inward and accept what he was really scared of.

Fucking it up. Of having it and losing it. He wouldn’t survive that.

On the other hand, having Cas so close all the time and not being able to touch him and kiss him and tell him might end up killing him anyway.

And now - now that’d he’d gotten a taste - now that he knew how warm and how soft and how pliable Cas could be, how fucking great it felt to have Cas against him, in his arms, under his hands…

Well. There was just no way he could be happy with anything less.

He rubbed the back of Cas’ hand when his fingers twitched against Dean’s chest.

Of course all of this was moot if Cas actually didn’t feel the same about him.

Cas’ nose bumped the underside of Dean’s chin when he tilted his head back. Sleepily, he nosed up under Dean’s jaw and inhaled softly.

“Dean…”

Cas wasn’t awake and Dean’s name was nothing but a soft sigh. Goosebumps bloomed down Dean’s arms as Cas settled once more, long fingers curling in the front of Dean’s shirt as if he needed something to hang on to.

It wasn’t until the first rays of dawn were struggling through the thin curtains over the kitchenette window that Dean woke up. His skin was tacky and itchy with dried sweat and he grimaced at the taste in his mouth. When he yawned, the air was humid and stale.

With thoughts of a shower forefront in his mind, Dean absently rubbed his hand down and then up Cas’ back once, then opened his eyes.

Sam was out cold in the other bed. He must have snuck back in after Dean had fallen asleep. He must have seen them like this.

Everyone already knows, Dean.

He stared back up at the ceiling and released a careful breath, his heart thudding for a reason he couldn’t pinpoint. 

Before he could figure out what - if anything - he should do, Cas woke up. He could tell because the angel suddenly went stiff against him. Unwilling to let go just yet, and wanting to let Cas know it was ok, Dean pulled him close and gave his hand a gentle squeeze where it still rested over Dean’s heart.

When Cas softened a bit, Dean’s heart gave an aching, hopeful beat.

“Mornin’ sunshine. You made it,” Dean murmured.

Cas suddenly turned his face into Dean’s chest and inhaled reflexively in a half yawn, then he did the most human thing Dean had ever seen him do. He stretched his arms and legs out then curled back in, squeezing Dean around the waist just a little too hard.

Still, Dean laughed, feeling as weightless as the sunlight in the curtains.

All too soon, Cas sat up with slow, stiff movements. A soft groan and a grimace were preceded by a grumpy, “I feel disgusting.”

“Yeah a raging fever will do that.”

Cas’ hand came up to massage his forehead with a shaking hand. He probably had a terrible headache from dehydration alone. Dean hoped Sam had picked up some gatorade like they’d talked about.

Dean sat up too and slipped his fingers around the arm that was currently hiding Cas’ stitches. “Lemme see.”

The wound looked mostly healed and Dean sighed, relieved. Though he knew the outside was the easy one for Cas to heal.

“We’ll take these out today. How are you doing, you know…internally?”

Cas still hadn’t opened his eyes, as if the meager light through his eyelids was already too painful. 

“I am healing slowly but the wound is still…quite serious.”

Angel blades caused horrific damage, Dean knew, and on top of that it made the wound much more difficult to heal. Cas would be out of commission for at least a few days. They were going to have to take it easy.

“I want to shower.”

“No problem,” Dean assured lowly, not wanting to wake Sam. He slid off the bed and stood, hands already out to help brace Cas as he wobbled to his feet. 

Finally, Cas cracked open his eyes, but closed them again almost immediately with a weary sigh. 

“Eh-scha, I feel awful.”

Dean's lips twitched at the muttered enochian curse, but if Cas was admitting that, out loud and unprompted, he must really be suffering. Dean took the excuse to step into Cas’ side and wrap an arm around his waist for support as he guided Cas towards the bathroom. When no complaint or refusal of the help came up, Dean began to worry.

“Are you sure you’re up to this?”

Cas grumbled something at him that wasn’t in English but was still very clearly an insult of some kind. Dean rolled his eyes. “At least you’re feeling good enough to be a bitch again.”

Cas leveled a glare at the side of his face and Dean couldn’t help but grin, something easing up in his chest.

That frightened, traumatized Cas from last night was gone. Dean thought it might be a good idea to start trying to coax it out of hiding now and then, see if he couldn’t get Cas talking about some of the horrific things he’s gone through. But not until Cas was healed up. 

He left Cas in the bathroom with the least dirty-looking towel and Dean’s own shampoo and conditioner because he was convinced the motel stuff was just dish soap. When he told Cas to shout if he needed help the door was promptly shut in his face.

Dean grinned again.

Sam was sitting up on his bed, rubbing one eye and squinting at his phone with the other. “How’s he feeling?”

“Good enough to be grumpy.”

Sam huffed a laugh. “Good.” The smile faded and he put his phone down. “Last night was a little too close.”

“Yeah. Way too close,” Dean agreed, his heart clenching. Way too fucking close. Not wanting to dwell on it too much, he pressed on with better news. “But his stitches are healed so we gotta take them out. He said inside he’s...still in rough shape though. Gotta make him take it easy for a few days.”

Sam scoffed. “Yeah, Cas is great at taking it easy.”

“He’s got no choice,” Dean muttered darkly. “I’ll handcuff him to the bed if I have to. He doesn’t know it but those angel cuffs are still in the trunk.”

Sam grinned. “If you do, try to snap a picture of the look on his face.”

They both sniggered but when the water turned off behind the bathroom door they schooled their expressions into something neutral. The door opened, and Cas walked out in a billow of steam and a much less unhappy scrunch between his brows.

He was also only wearing a towel around his waist and when Dean turned with his mouth open to say something snarky his gaze was yanked downward over the clean lines of Cas’ damp skin, defined pectorals, and a flat stomach, until it got stuck on the jut of his hipbones just above the towel.

“Feeling better?” Sam asked with a smirk, but his eyes were on Dean.

“Much,” was Cas’ gruff answer. Though he still looked unsteady on his feet and his eyes kept closing for longer and longer blinks.

Dean was up immediately, swallowing around a dry throat and concern in equal measure. Whatever meager bit of energy Cas had managed to scrape together in the fitful rest he’d gotten had clearly been used up taking a shower.

Sam leapt off his bed and gestured for Cas use it instead of the one he’d been in last night. With the smears of blood and with how much sweating had been going on, the sheets on Sam's bed were much fresher.

Cas didn’t protest, or even open his eyes, merely allowed Dean to steer him to the new bed then wasted no time curling up on his good side and was immediately out.

Dean rolled his lip between his teeth and looked over at Sam. “I don’t think he’s up for a six hour car ride.”

Sam shook his head. “Definitely not. Seems like he’s out of the woods, though. Unless you want me to stay, I think I’ll rent a car and head back to the bunker. Eileen texted me about a case she’s got in Moab and she needs some back-up.”

Dean grinned and clapped his brother on the arm. “I bet she does.”

“Dude, don’t be gross.”

“Who’s being gross? A pretty girl needs backup and I’m sure you’re the closest hunter at almost fifteen hours away.”

Sam’s cheeks were coloring. “It’s not...that important. It can wait a couple days for me to get there, that's all.”

“Oh, ok. So it’s important enough to need back-up but not so important it can’t wait a couple days for you, specifically, to get there. Got it.”

Sam was silent for a few seconds before his eyes darted to Cas’ sleeping form and his chin lifted. “If you’d prefer, you can go back-up Eileen and I’ll stay here and snuggle Cas back to health.”

Heat flooded Dean’s face so fast he swore he felt the impact. When his head remained absolutely void of comebacks, Sam smirked.

“I’ll take that as a no.”

Ten minutes later Sam was walking smugly out the door with his bag slung over his shoulder to meet his Uber driver and then Dean was left with the sound of the dying air conditioner and a sleeping – half-naked – angel.

He turned to regard said half-naked angel, his eyes dropping to the row of stitches. It would have been better to take them out once the wound was half-healed, taking them out now was going to be painful but there was nothing he could do about that. Their first aid kit was still on the night stand between the beds, open with the contents all pulled out, and Dean contemplated waking Cas to get the stitches out now but decided against it. It would be no more painful in a few hours, after Cas got some much needed rest. Instead he busied himself with pulling the soiled sheets off the other bed and running to the front desk for a clean set as well as to pay for another night.

He was out of breath from jogging back in the sweltering sun, which prickled his skin like needles even through his tshirt. It was only 10AM and the asphalt was already threatening to melt the soles of his boots. He was relieved to see Cas right where he’d left him and quickly closed the door so he didn’t let any more heat in than he already had.

After making sure the curtains over the single window were pulled closed to block any sun, and after the new sheets were on the bed, Dean stretched out and took a deep breath. He was weary down to his bones now that the anxiety over Cas’ injury had backed off. He meant to close his eyes only for a few minutes but when he opened them again the dim square of light from the window had moved from the table to the foot of his bed.

He sat up with a curse, one foot already on the floor between the beds.

But Cas was still in the same place, curled up on his side, back to Dean and the rest of the room, and Dean’s heart rate calmed. He wasn’t even sure what he’d been expecting. He stared at the expanse of tanned skin in front of him, at the faint ridges of Cas’ spine, of the soft outline of relaxed muscle.

An impulse to crawl into the bed behind Cas and gather him close was suddenly so strong that Dean’s feet twitched to move him forward. But he stayed put. Cas was no longer feverish, no longer needed that grounding scent of someone he trusted. His heart ached with the knowledge that that might have been the one and only time he’d get to hold Cas like that.

His memory of how it felt was already hazier than he'd like and his fingers curled in the edge of the mattress as he tried to ignore the magnetic pull of Cas being so close, of the memory of how it felt to hold him.

Cas shifted, pulling a breath in through his nose and rolling onto his back. When his eyes opened they were mere slits, just enough to see, and immediately found Dean.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, voice rough with sleep.

Dean pulled a face, and tried to smile. “With me? Nothin’. You’re the one with a hole in your side big enough to throw a cat through.”

Cas stared at him, frozen in confusion. “You were…” his eyes opened a bit more as he woke up. Absently, he was playing with the very tips of his hair with one arm curled over his head as he contemplated Dean curiously. “You were praying to me…”

It took Dean a few seconds to catch up to what Cas was saying, distracted as he was by yet another very human movement Cas was making. Playing with his hair? All sleepy and squinty?

“Uh...what? No I wasn’t.”

Cas looked away and closed his eyes, fingers pushing into the roots of his hair and staying there. “Whatever,” he muttered.

Dean rolled his eyes, “Don’t love that Claire is teaching you how to talk like a teenager.”

“Check your vibe, fam,” Cas said in his patented dry monotone.

Dean burst out laughing, it punched its way out of him so hard that he rocked backwards. Eyes still closed, one corner of Cas’ full lips curled upward. It took a solid minute for Dean to get his laughter under control and he actually made a mental note to thank Claire because hearing Cas talk like that in his signature growl might actually have been the funniest thing he’d ever heard.

Wiping the last of the tears from his eyes, he wheezed, “Jesus. Nevermind, that was hilarious.”

Cas huffed in either agreement or derision, it was hard to tell, and he was sagging towards sleep once more. Quickly, Dean reached forward and put a hand on his arm.

“Hey…let's get those stitches out and then you can go back to sleep, ok?”

Cas grunted but didn’t open his eyes and when Dean started to lift his arm Cas pulled a breath in through his nose, lifting it himself and curling it over the top of his head.

Dean scooted the chair closer and grabbed the tiny scissors and tweezers from the first aid kit. “So, what else has Claire been teaching you, huh?”

“Well, I only understand half of what she – ah!”

Dean pressed his hand to Cas’ side, applying a bit of pressure to the stitch he’d just pulled out to sooth the sting while Cas offered him a narrow-eyed glare.

Dean held his palms out and up in a shrug. “Unless you got the juice to vaporize these, I gotta take ‘em out.”

“All my juice is currently being used to mend the gaping wounds in my side.”

Dean paused briefly with the tweezers gripping the next thread. Then he tugged it gently free and turned to set it with the other one on the side table. “Wounds, plural?”

He slid the tiny scissor blade under the next stitch and snipped it. 

Cas hummed. “Imagine if you could squeeze yourself into the body of a hamster and got stabbed. Small wound on the outside, very, very big one on the inside.”

Dean was silent, his stomach twisting uncomfortably. He didn’t linger on the memory of light streaming from Cas’ eyes and mouth like so many other angles right before they’d flamed out. 

Still…

“Thought I was gonna lose you for a minute there.”

Cas finally opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling for three heartbeats. “For a minute there you almost did.”

Dean focused on the stitch he was pulling out. “Never seen an angel come back from the edge like that before. Thought once you started bleeding light it was all over.”

He didn’t know why he was pushing this. Didn’t know why he couldn’t just be happy that Cas hadn’t gone supernova in his arms, but some part of him needed to know what had happened. Just in case he needed to do it again.

The too-fast sideways look Cas shot him was a familiar one and Dean paused, resting his hands on the mattress. 

“Cas.” He kept his tone firm, to let the angel know he wasn’t going to let this go. Not now, anyway. Not after that look.

Cas heaved a great sigh as if massively inconvenienced. “You prayed to me.”

“...what?”

Cas swallowed. “You said, ‘You can heal this. You can do this’.”

Dean straightened, his heart beating faster. “How the hell did that help?”

Cas' reply was soft and quiet. “You believed it."

“Believed what?”

“That I could heal.”

“So my…thoughts healed you?”

Cas rolled his head to look at him but almost immediately averted his eyes. “No. Your faith did.”

“My faith.”

“The power of faith can do incredible things and it’s…” here his mouth hung open for a second while he shifted through words, trying to find the ones he wanted. “A different kind of power, but still something angels can wield. In a way. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Dean said nothing, mulling that over. He pressed his fingers to Cas’ skin so it pulled less when he removed the next stitch.

“So I helped you heal just by believing you were strong enough to do it?”

Cas shrugged one shoulder, back to staring at the ceiling. “More or less.”

It wasn’t often Cas wouldn’t look at him. Staring at Dean seemed to be his resting state. If Cas wouldn’t look at him it always meant one of two things. Either he was pissed at Dean - not likely in this scenario - or he was trying to hide something from Dean.

Normally Cas refusing to look at him would be enough to send Dean into a tailspin - not something he was willing to think about right now - but after finding out he’d basically healed Cas by wanting it hard enough, Dean was feeling light.

He grinned, carefully removing another stitch. “So I got to heal you for a change, huh? So now I only owe you…” he made a show of ticking off numbers on his fingers as if counting, “Four…million other heals?”

Cas huffed a laugh through his nose and seemed to relax a bit.

“What about that wicked fever you were running all last night? I didn’t know angels could get sick like that.”

“My body was…panic healing. I was burning a great deal of grace to triage the damage and that always generates a lot of heat. It’s not something I have control over, my body just…does it naturally. I’m sorry to cause so much trouble.”

“I wasn’t annoyed, Cas, I was scared shitless. You were -” But he stopped the words in his tracks.

Cas was staring at him now. “I was what?”

Dean looked up at him. His blue eyes were clear and focused and there wasn’t a single trace of that fear. Dean remembered Cas trying to run, crying out softly, twisting in the sheets to escape something that had struck terror in his heart.

He looked back down and pulled out the last stitch. “Doesn’t matter. You were having a rough night but I…found something that helped and you got some rest.” He set the tweezers aside and looked away from the double row of pinpricks up Cas’ ribs and tried to smile. Tried not to think about how it felt to have Cas in his arms.

For a moment Cas was silent. Then, “I don’t remember much. I’m sorry if I…” his eyes flicked up to Dean’s and then away self-consciously. “If you saw something that made you uncomfortable.”

That was intriguing. Dean straightened in his chair. “What do you remember?”

Cas licked his lips. “It’s not important.”

“It is to me,” Dean told him. He was simultaneously dying to know what had scared Cas so much and didn’t want to know at all. 

What he did want was the opportunity for Cas to get something off his chest that might be lingering just under the surface, something that was causing him pain, and maybe offer him some comfort. He wasn't sure if Cas remembred everything from last night or not and Dean suspected there had been nightmares behind his eyes even in the moments where he looked like he'd been resting.

“Why?”

Dean shrugged. “Humour me.”

Cas sighed. “Naomi.”

“The one who mind-whammied you?”

Cas nodded.

It only occurred to Dean then that he didn’t know the details of what being mind-whammied entailed. As he stared at Cas’ profile and recalled the previous night and how Cas was behaving, he was getting the sinking impression that it had involved more than just simple magic.

“Sometimes I…I forget that it’s in the past. I can still hear it and feel it.”

“It?”

“The drill. Last night I thought…” Cas closed his eyes and pressed a hand to his forehead. “I thought I was back on her table again.”

Dean's brain was stuck, his stomach cramping with something cold. "A drill?”

Cas nodded jerkily, swallowed again. “Yes, she used to go in through my eye and I…it was as if she was boring out parts of me. It was…painful. Afterwards there were always these terrible black patches in my memory where I knew something had been, but was gone now, and the things on either side of it were bleeding into the empty space. It was very disorienting. I spent a lot of time just trying to orientate myself in space and time.”

Dean’s empty stomach twisted and heaved. “She…she lobotomized you.”

Cas hummed the affirmative. “I found out afterwards from some of my siblings who’d received the same procedure that they were surgically removing our memories of disobedience. Any time we didn’t follow orders it was removed, as well as any events they felt had led up to it.”

Abruptly, Cas rolled onto his side to face Dean. “What did you find that helped me last night?” His eyes were wide as they stared at him.

Dean cleared his throat and shoved aside Cas’ casual and horrific A-Bomb, he could freak out about it later. “Well. Turns out you’re a bit of a cuddler.”

He didn’t mention that it seemed to have been Dean’s scent, specifically, that had helped tether him to reality.

Cas frowned, disbelieving.

Dean spread his hands wide. “I’m tellin’ ya. I laid down next to you and you snuggled up to me like a baby koala.”

The Frown™ deepened and then abruptly smoothed, replaced by two blooms of red high on Cas’ cheeks. Cas looked away again.

“I remember now.” He rubbed his forehead and seemed annoyed through the blush. “This morning. I’m sorry. I know how you value your personal space. Why didn’t you take the sofa?”

“I wanted to help and you…you were so…” Dean shrugged, looked down at his hands to fiddle with the tweezers he was still holding. “I’ve never seen you like that and it…I…I wanted to help.”

For a long moment Cas didn’t say anything. “The hallucinations were quite vivid. And any time I spent with Naomi was…”

“Traumatizing?”

Cas’ stared at him for a moment longer, then his eyes flitted away again like a nervous bird. “I don’t think angels are allowed to be traumatized.”

It was meant to be a joke, Cas’ light tone told Dean it was, but Dean felt his heart crack in his chest. Before he could think better of it, he reached out and gently circled Cas’ wrist with his fingers.

Cas flinched, a full body-involuntary twitch, and his eyes darted down to Dean’s hand and then up to his face, wide and uncertain - a stark contrast to the half conscious version of Cas from that morning that had been pressed up against Dean's side and nosing up under his chin like a cat.

Dean’s heart cracked a little more. He rarely touched Cas - mostly for self-control reasons - and hadn’t been aware of how touch-averse Cas had become. How long had this traumatized creature been walking around beside him while Dean was too self-absorbed to notice?

“What are you doing?” Cas asked, tone sharp and wary as Dean stroked his thumb along the back of his hand.

“Touching you.”

“Why?”

Dean shrugged while his heart bled. “Human thing, I guess. It’s how we comfort each other. Seemed to help you last night.”

Cas only continued to stare at him, his chest rising and falling a little faster than normal. Perhaps simply unused to being touched kindly. Perhaps acutely aware, as Dean was, the boundary Dean had just crossed that had been in place for them for so long. They didn't touch unless something dire was happening, and last night had been plenty dire to excuse physical touch. But now, in the plain light of morning, with both of them perfectly lucid? This was far outside their established routine.

“It’s ok,” Dean whispered, sliding his hand up Cas’ arm.

“What are you doing?” Cas asked again, but this time the words trembled from his lips.

One of them had to cross that bridge and it was going to be Dean because now that he knew what it felt like to hold Cas in his arms there was no way in hell he was going to live without it if there was even the slightest chance he could have it.

And besides, everyone already knows, Dean.

And he was pretty sure that included Cas. Dean had made it pretty clear over the years that this thing between them was not to be acknowledged, so it was no wonder that this was throwing Cas for a loop and/or possibly scaring the hell out of him.

He stood, pressing the tips of his fingers into Cas’ shoulder when he tried to sit up. Silently, eyes the size of dinner plates, Cas watched Dean sit on the edge of the bed, swing his legs up, and lie down beside him.

Slowly, giving Cas time to move away if he wanted, Dean raised his arm in invitation.

He still remembered the first few times he’d given Cas a hug, how the angel had just stood there completely flummoxed. Dean also remembered the first time Cas had hesitantly reciprocated. He’d left Dean hanging for several long seconds before he raised his arms and hugged Dean back like a toddler being told to be gentle with a kitten.

Watching Cas think through a new human experience wasn’t something Dean got to do often these days. Cas had been down here long enough now that there wasn’t a lot left that stumped him.

Apparently cuddling was one of them, though. Cas stared at him, eyes flicking uncertainly between Dean’s face and the empty place between them like he couldn’t quite figure out what Dean was offering.

And maybe he couldn’t, Dean supposed. Over a decade of being kept firmly at arm’s length wouldn’t make this sudden change easy to figure out. 

With a sigh, Dean reached over and slipped his arm around Cas’ shoulders, but when he gently tried to pull him close, Cas did that thing where he turned into a lump of stone and refused to budge.

Dean’s stomach sank and the feeling that he was being rejected started creeping up on him. He licked his lips, trying to find the words to communicate to Cas what he was feeling while trying his best not to worry about how blank Cas’ face had gone.

“Hey…” Dean stalled, a thousand things clogging his throat from the last ten years, and daringly pushed the tips of his fingers into the hair at the back of Cas’ neck.

It was mesmerizing, to be the one to make that angelic mask slip a little. As he pushed the tips of his fingers deeper into Cas’ hair, Cas’ eyes fluttered and he sagged just a bit before everything snapped back into place.

“I get that this is kinda out of left field. I know I’m not usually the most…” Dean trailed off, still unsure of how he should say what he was trying to say.

Cas licked his lips and pulled away, and Dean’s fingers dragged around to the front of Cas’ neck and lingered on his collar bone.

“I understand that you think you’re helping by touching me,” Cas swallowed thickly and looked away. “But you’re not.”

Dean sat up, his heart thudding hard. When he tried to move closer, Cas moved away like a mirror image.

“Cas, wait…”

But Cas was shaking his head and using the bedside table to push himself up on shaking legs. Dean rushed to the edge of the mattress and placed a supportive hand under Cas’ arm, but Cas jerked away.

“Stop…touching me.”

Dean straightened, jaw clenched. Why was Cas fighting this so hard? Last night, he was snuggling Dean like a baby gorilla. What was different now?

“Just…just talk me through what you’re thinking, Cas.”

"I don't want…" Cas shook his head, swayed on his feet, glared at Dean when he tried to move closer. "If we did something like we did this morning…laying together. That…" Cas turned away from him, moved towards the sofa on unsteady legs, and muttered, "That would mean something different to me than it would to you."

The sickening squirm in Dean's stomach vanished and he took a deep breath. For all they joked about Cas struggling to grasp human communication, he sure could bust out master level moves when the occasion called for it.

And maybe the Dean of a few months ago would have taken the out Cas was giving him, because anyone else, anyone who didn't know Cas, might take all that as Cas saying angels don't feel that way, or maybe that laying together like Dean and Cas had that morning meant something different in angelic culture. But Dean was sure that wasn't at all what Cas was saying.

It was really the only way Cas could say that allowing himself to be vulnerable with Dean, allowing himself to be intimate with Dean, would mean more to Cas, without actually coming out and saying that he didn't want platonic pity cuddles. The he wanted something different than Dean did. That if they did that, it had to be something deeper, something altogether more permanent.

Something Dean had made very clear wasn't wanted on his end.

And Dean had had months of thinking it through an accepting his feelings and fantasizing about what they might be able to have, while Cas had spent that same time towing the line, unaware of the cosmic shift taking place inside Dean's heart.

It was Dean's fault Cas didn't know they were on the same page. It was Dean's fault Cas was so carefully guarding his heart now.

He slowly approached Cas, who turned to face him warily, exhaustion creasing his face already.

"Sit down before you fall down," Dean ordered softly, pressing Cas down onto the sofa with a careful hand on his shoulder.

Barely able to keep himself on his feet, Cas went with a glare. Dean didn't try to take his hand or touch him again, instead clasped his hands in his lap and evenly met Cas' eye.

"Do you want to hear what it meant to me?" Dean asked.

Cas' eyes narrowed and he legitimately looked torn between wanting and not wanting to know. When no answer was forthcoming, Dean decided he'd waited long enough to take this plunge.

"You know, I've been through some pretty terrible shit, Cas, but last night, watching you bleed out, waiting for you to go supernova…that's gotta be in the top five most horrible things I've even experienced. And then spending all night watching you fight your way through nightmares and hallucinations and not knowing if you were gonna make it till dawn and feeling absolutely fucking useless while you suffered…" Dean choked a watery laugh. "Then I found something that seemed to help and…it was me? I finally…" he swallowed down the sudden spike of nerves and pushed through, "I finally had an excuse to get close to you…hold you like I wanted to. Got to have you pressed right up against me where I could keep you safe, like I…"

Annoyed at the tears prickling his eyes and the way his throat was going tight, Dean scrubbed at his face.

He had more to say - ten years worth of more - but Cas' hand on his wrist made all the thoughts clamoring for attention scatter like ash in the wind and he jerked his head up to look at the angel.

Cas' touch was soft, hesitant, like he wasn't sure if it was allowed. His blue eyes were swimming with uncertainty and it made Dean's heart ache.

"Dean…Dean, please say clearly what you mean because I…I don't want to…assume."

I don't want to hope, is what Dean heard, and that was a feeling Dean knew well. He offered a watery smile and swallowed down the wave of bile pushing up his throat at the thought of what he was about to say out loud for the first time after months of saying it to himself.

"What I'm tryin' to say is…" He took a deep breath and then the words were spilling out of him in a breathless rush. "I love you, Cas. I fucking love you, ok? And I loved holding you and helping you and I believe me when I say I am desperate to do both again. Whenever I can."

Cas was staring at him, still as a statue, eyes so wide the whites were showing all the way around. After a long moment in which Dean mentally eviscerated himself for being so stupid, for putting himself out there, for potentially ruining the best friendship he'd ever had by making it awkward as all hell, Cas swallowed thickly.

"And the kind of love you're talking about in this context is-"

Dean grabbed Cas' chin, leaned forward, and planted a rough kiss on his plush lips, because he didn't want to hear Cas ask if he meant brotherly love, or platonic love, or some other kind of not-romantic, not-head-over-heels-stupidly in love, kind of love. He wanted to make it crystal clear to Cas' angelic brain exactly what kind of love Dean meant.

"That clear enough?" Dean asked roughly, panting hard, eyes glued to where Cas' lips were parted in shock.

He'd just kissed Cas. His lips had just touched Cas' lips. They were still tingling.

"Extremely," Cas breathed.

Then Dean found himself with a lap full of angel. He was pushed against the back of the sofa and Cas was straddling his thighs and Dean wasn't sure where to put his hands because Cas was still very much just in a towel so he settled for pushing one up his back and curling the other around his waist and trying not to think about how Cas' muscular thigh was exposed in the slit in the towel or how Cas was bare under that towel and sitting in the cradle of Dean's hips with only the thin layer of Dean's pajama bottoms between them.

The kiss was searing and desperate, built-up over almost a decade of missed opportunities. He pressed apologies and confessions into Cas' skin, down his neck, across his collar bone while Cas' fingers tangled and tugged in his hair and an arm curled around the back of Dean's neck.

When Dean circled Cas' waist with both arms and squeezed him close, the gasp that flew from Cas' lips was more pain than anything else and Dean snapped back to reality harshly.

"Jesus, what the fuck are we doing?" He gasped as he let go and gently slid a hand up Cas' chest to push him back.

Cas already looked wrecked. Dazed blue eyes looked down at him in confusion, likely wondering why Dean had put an end to this so soon, but above the crisp white towel around his waist, the inflamed pink pinpricks of the freshly removed stitches were stark against Cas' tanned skin.

Cas licked his swollen red lips. "What's wrong?"

"What's wrong? You almost died less than twelve hours ago, we shouldn't be -"

With his head cocked to the side, Cas reached back, hooked his long fingers under Dean's thighs, and used the leverage to grind down against Dean's lap.

At the starburst of pleasure - as well as the visual of Cas curiously exploring anything to do with pleasure - Dean's head flew back against the back of the sofa and his hands clamped reflexively onto Cas hips, pushing him down against Dean's hardening length as his hips twitched reflexively upward.

Dean growled, prying his eyelids open.

Cas' abdominals flexed as he squirmed, hips rocking back and forth in the instinctual pursuit of pleasure. He bit his lip as he rocked in Dean's lap, brow scrunching beautifully.

Dean was mesmerized. He stared, wide-eyed, as Cas curiously chased the new sensation, one hand coming up to grip Dean's shoulder to hold himself steady, the other reaching for one of the hands Dean still hand on his hips.

"It feels…" Cas panted, eyes slipping shut, head going back, "Good."

And who the fuck was Dean to stop that? Heat surged through Dean, white hot in his veins, and he grinned, tightening his hold on Cas' hips and helping him grind down on his next pass. When a gasping cry flew from Cas' throat, Dean drank it down greedily.

"Dean."

He loved it when Cas said his name like a full sentence. He pried one hand off Cas' hip and slid up his thigh where it was exposed in the slit of the towel to sneak his fingers under the edge, but he paused there.

"Hey," he said softly, reached up with his other hand to touch the side of Cas' face until the angel opened his eyes. "This ok?" Dean asked, pushing his fingers farther under the towel.

Bleerily, Cas nodded, leaning down to kiss him.

Slipping his hand around the back of Cas' neck to hold him in place, Dean circled his fingers around Cas' straining cock and swallowed the shuddering moan it pulled from Cas' chest.

Cas' rhythm faltered at the new sensation of being touched and for a moment he panted, forehead pressed to Dean's temple, hands gripping Dean's arms too tight.

"Easy, sweetheart," Dean murmured. He didn't move his hand, just held Cas under the towel. He tried to pull back to get a look at Cas' face but Cas wouldn't let him move, dug his fingers in hard enough to bruise.

Reality pushed back some of the fog in Dean's brain and he was once against reminded that Cas had endured significant trauma less than twelve hours ago.

Before he could muster any kind of half-hearted protest, Cas' hips twitched forward, precum easing the glide of his cock through the circled of Dean's fingers and grinding an enochian curse from Cas' throat. And before Dean could object under the grounds of something stupid like Cas should be resting, Cas was already fucking Dean's fist with shallow, instinctual thrusts and gasping soft sounds against the shell of Dean's ear.

With his heart hammering in his chest and cock trapped under the swell of Cas' ass as he rocked in Dean's lap, thoughts of being the responsible one went right out the window and he tightened his fist just to hear what sound Cas would make.

When Cas' rhythm turned jerky and sporadic, Dean quickly pressed his free hand low on Cas' back to guide the roll of his hips.

"Just like that, sweetheart," he moved his hand to match Cas' rhythm for a few more seconds, then pulled his hand back so just the head of Cas' cock was thrusting shallowly into his fist.

With a panting cry, Cas dug his fingers into Dean hard enough to bruise, and the lamp on the bedside table flickered and popped. Then Cas was coming in Dean's hand with a soft cry on the crest of every exhale that made Dean's heart swell and the heat in his gut roar.

He slid a hand up to the back of Cas' head, threading his fingers in his hair and pressing a kiss to his temple while he gently worked Cas through his orgasm and tried to ignore the aching need between his own legs.

When Cas twitched in his lap, Dean finally pulled his hand away and wiped it on the - now very convenient - towel. The knot had finally slipped, leaving it pooled around Cas' hips in a deliciously enticing way.

When Cas finally pulled back, Dean swallowed, his cocked twitching at the blue-white glow in the angel's eyes and the ruby red of his kiss-swollen lips.

"Fuck," Dean cursed, at a loss for words. He finally grabbed Cas' hips again and pushed the angel down into his lap as he ground up to meet him, desperate for friction.

It only took a few seconds for Cas' dazed mind to catch on and then he was pushing back against Dean's thrusts, readjusting himself so that Dean's cock was trapped between the swell of his cheeks. After that it was an embarrassingly short amount of time before Dean was arching against the back of the sofa and coming hard enough to leave white spots dancing around the edges of his vision.

Cas panted and stared down at him with grace-blown eyes, clearly stunned.

Feeling like an idiot, Dean remembered that this was likely Cas' first positive sexual experience. A one night stand with a reaper when the alternative was freezing to death in the street likely hadn't been all that great.

Suddenly worried that might have been overwhelming as hell, Dean reached up to cup Cas' face, wondering if it was good or bad that grace was shining in his eyes.

"Hey, you ok? Talk to me, Cas."

Cas nodded, lips parted as his breathing was still heavy. "I'm ok." One corner of his swollen lips curled up. "I'm very ok."

Dean huffed a breath in relief and slid his hand up Cas' back, over the hills and valleys of soft muscle, and pressed his forehead to Cas' chest. "Can't always tell if you going all glowy is good or bad."

When he looked back up, Cas was still glowing. Literally. His eyes were two cutouts of a cloudless blue sky in the dark room. Dean grinned up at him and his heart gave an aching beat when Cas leaned down to press their lips together again, long fingers curling around the sides and back of Dean's neck.

Suddenly Cas pulled sharply back, a shocked look on his face, the light in his eyes vanishing. "I love you too!"

Dean chuckled, absently sliding his hands up Cas' bare thighs and marveling at the fact that he could. "Was wondering how long you were gonna leave me hanging."

It was distracting, how perfectly his hands fit into the narrow part of Cas' waist. Dean swallowed down a wave of arousal, and rubbed his thumb over the soft skin under Cas' belly button, trying not to get too ahead of himself. Cas was very new to this.

Oh, and also had been mortally wounded a handful of hours ago.

"What are you thinking about?" Cas asked him softly, head canted slightly to one side in that way that made Dean's insides do funny things.

Dean stared at him, flashes of all the possible things - and all the possible positions - he wanted to try. He slid his hands down from Cas' waist, over his hips, nudged the towel the rest of the way off, then dug his thumbs firmly into the inside of Cas' thighs where they were spread around Dean's hips.

The shocked gasp that flew from Cas' lips was like a spark to dry tinder and just like that the coals low in Dean's belly were glowing again. He cocked a brow at Cas' lap but stopped himself from touching.

"That's some refractory period you have there, angel."

Cas' eyes started to glow blue-white again and he leaned in close enough to purr against Dean's lips. "You could have it too…" he trailed his index finger along the edge of Dean's jaw, letting his grace spark like static in offering.

And though something white-hot surged through Dean at the idea of Cas using his grace for anything even remotely sexual, he really did have to be the responsible one now. He reached up to hold Cas' face and kissed him deeply enough to be distracting. When he pulled back, Cas looked suitably dazed.

"The only thing we're gonna have is a shower and a nap."

Cas made an irritated noise, "Are you trying to be responsible again?"

"I'm not trying, I'm succeeding."

"I'm fine."

"Define 'fine'."

"…no."

"Then get up."

"I'm too tired from our irresponsible love-making."

"Jesus. Ok, then I'll help you."

"Define 'help'."

"Cas."

With a smirk, Cas rose perfectly well on his own and sauntered into the bathroom, leaving Dean to stare at the round swell of his ass. He took a moment while Cas turned on the water to rest his head on the back of the couch and take a few steadying breaths.

The last thirty minutes felt surreal, like a dream. Though the uncomfortable wet spot on the front of his pajama pants was enough to remind him that wasn't true.

He'd just had sex with Cas.

Sex. With Cas.

He grinned, then chewed his lip as he replayed it in his head.

"Dean."

He lept to his feet at Cas' weary call, when he got to the bathroom, Cas was leaning against the sink like it was all that was holding him up while he stared at the steaming stream of water.

"I am, in fact, very tired," Cas admitted, eyes drooping.

Cursing himself - he shouldn't have let them get so carried away, he knew Cas was going to be hurting for a few days - Dean offered Cas an arm so he could transfer his weight from the sink and step over the edge of the tub. Then he shed his own clothes and stepped in behind him.

"We'll just rinse off quick," he promised, pressing a gentle kiss to the side of Cas' neck.

When Cas leaned back against his chest and rested his head on Dean's shoulder, trusted him to take his weight, Dean thought his heart might bleed right out of his chest. He curled a protective arm around Cas' waist to hold him steady, then carefully but quickly washed the mess and the heat off both of them.

A few minutes later and Cas was out cold, the length of his naked body - a much more normal temperature now - pressed up against Dean's chest. And even though there was a certainty that this wouldn't be the only time he got to hold Cas, that he might actually get to do this every single night for the rest of his life, Dean still committed every bit of it to memory. He still relished every second of Cas in the cradle of his arms right up until the moment he fell asleep, and then he kept right on dreaming about it, already excited about getting to do it all over again tomorrow.

Notes:

Please let me know what you think!