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Someday, maybe someday soon, everything will be okay. At least, that’s what Dean Winchester tells himself tonight, at almost midnight, sitting across from Castiel, empty plates and beer bottles and crumpled napkins still strewn across the table. It’s been an hour since they had told Jack to go get some rest, it’s been twenty-six minutes since Sam had gone to do whatever.
And, for years now, Dean has looked forward to these moments, alone, with Castiel. These nearly silent minutes where their secrets are allowed to briefly feel some kind of forbidden freedom. The times when everyone else has abandoned them for sleep or solitude, and their touches are no longer confined to under-the-table leg rubs and pretend-accidental shoulder bumps. When Dean glances up at the doorway to make sure there’s no one wandering in before reaching out to Castiel’s hand, tracing his fingers over and between Castiel’s.
But, tonight, something feels different. Something feels off, and Castiel pulls himself back just enough for Dean’s fingertips to fall away from his, turning his eyes away from Dean’s in the dim light of the Bunker kitchen.
There’s a panic that comes over Dean, in those seconds, when Castiel isn’t looking at him. A fear that maybe whatever this is, whatever has been going on between them behind closed doors for so long, is finally over. Maybe things have gone wrong too many times for Castiel to want the muted sex they’ve had so many times, where they use each other’s mouths and bodies to muffle whatever sounds of release they’re afraid someone might hear. Or to want the early morning escapes from Dean’s bedroom so that no one knows the hours Castiel spends tangled in Dean’s sheets.
Maybe this is finally when Castiel has had enough, when Castiel finally realizes he doesn’t want Dean. And Dean tells himself he shouldn’t be surprised, and that this is what he probably deserves. “Sorry,” Dean says, dragging his arm back across the table, knocking aside his dish, crumbs scattering beside the sleeve of his flannel shirt.
Castiel doesn’t say anything, he just lets his hand slide slowly back onto Dean’s, letting his fingers graze across Dean’s wrist.
“Cas—we got Jack back. We know where Michael is. Finding Dark Kaia and the spear—Sam’s right, we’ll figure it out.” Dean is barely even listening to his own words, he’s just waiting for Castiel to leave him, to walk away.
“I know he’s right.” Castiel leans forward in his seat, but his eyes still won’t meet Dean’s. “It’s just been a difficult day. Fearing we’d lost Jack forever, going to Heaven.”
“Yeah, I get it.” Dean knows there’s something Castiel isn’t telling him, he can feel it in the way Castiel shifts his body so that their legs are further apart, the way he tilts his face away, towards the wall. “You want to talk about it?”
“No—no, I’m fine.” Castiel’s voice is low, and his hand drifts away from Dean’s. “All that matters is that Jack is back, and that we know where to find Michael.”
There’s a hesitation in Castiel’s tone, an uncertainty that Dean is more used to hearing from himself than from anyone else. “What happened up there, man? Is it something bad?” Dean doesn’t know if he wants to know the answer.
“No, Dean. Everything’s fine.” Castiel finds his beer bottle, still on the table next to him, and lets the last few sips roll into his mouth.
But Dean can’t force himself to believe that everything is fine. He only believes that this is probably Castiel’s way of trying to finally put an end to the all the things they’ve been doing in the dark for too long. So Dean stacks the dishes on top of each other, throws the napkins on top of them, and stands up from the table. “I’m going to go lie down—if you want to talk, or something else, you can just come in, you know. Whenever.”
He drops the plates into the sink, tells himself he can just clean them in the morning. Right now, he just needs to be alone, needs to remind himself over and over that Castiel never really wanted this, never really wanted him, and now everything is all fucked up. That having Michael inside him was the final thing that damned him from ever having Castiel the way he wants him.
Castiel is silent, and Dean can feel Castiel’s gaze as he walks out of the kitchen, can feel Castiel’s eyes follow him as he leaves. All Dean wants is to turn around and ask him what the fuck is going on, but instead, Dean closes the door to his bedroom, throws his jeans and flannel shirt onto the ground, and lies down in bed, the sheets cold against the sliver of exposed skin between his t-shirt and boxer shorts.
Dean had thought, or at least wished, that tonight could be one of their good nights. One of the nights where they had some hope that things would go their way. One of the nights where their hands were reckless over each other’s bodies, and they took too many turns making each other come. On those kinds of nights, Dean can at least pretend to believe Castiel that maybe loves him back.
But tonight, Dean is all alone, lying on his bed, burying his face into his pillow, trying to force himself to fall asleep. At least when he’s unconscious, the screams of all the people he couldn’t save drown out the little voice in his head that tells him, over and over, that no one, especially not Castiel, will ever love him back.
He’s wide awake though, listening to the sound of his own breath, the sound of the springs in the mattress underneath him as he struggles against his own thoughts. He picks up his phone from his nightstand, scrolls through some small-town news website. Maybe some case, some ghoul or vamp or some shifter, something for him to kill, someone for him to save, would help him forget about everything. Instead, the too-bright gleam of the phone burns his tired eyes, and he drops it down onto the bed next to him. Some hunt isn’t going to help him right now, it’s not going to make him forget that every single fucking time there’s some kind of passing chance that somehow things will work out, that he’ll win for good, something reminds him that happiness will never be in his grasp. Not really.
When the door opens, Dean doesn’t know if it’s been twenty minutes or two hours since he had left Castiel sitting in the kitchen. He doesn’t open his eyes, he doesn’t have to, to recognize Castiel’s footsteps against the floor, Castiel shrugging off his trenchcoat somewhere across the room, Castiel sitting down on the edge of his bed. “I won’t stay if you don’t want me to,” Castiel says, in the darkness.
“Don’t leave,” Dean mumbles into his pillow. “I don’t know what’s wrong—what happened upstairs, in Heaven. But if something’s wrong, you should tell me. Tell me if you made some stupid deal—”
“No, Dean. Nothing like that.” As Castiel lies down on the bed beside him, Dean can feel the mattress sink lower underneath their bodies. “No strings attached.”
In the pitch-black air, Dean pushes himself back, hoping to feel Castiel against him, but Castiel has slipped further toward the edge of the bed, some kind of invisible avoidance in the shadows. “Cas, is it me? Did I do something wrong?”
“Dean, stop.” The bed creaks as Castiel rolls onto his side, this time letting his chest and his hips rest against Dean’s back, and he lets his arm fall over Dean’s body, but his hand doesn’t rest on Dean the way it normally does. Instead, Castiel’s fingers rest on the sheets somewhere beyond Dean, pulling at the blanket underneath them, twisting it along his fingertips.
And this hurts even more than having Castiel across the room, across the universe. Because, right now, like this, Dean almost has Castiel. He can almost feel Castiel, but at the same time, he can’t feel Castiel at all, he can’t feel anything, and it feels like someone is twisting something deep inside him. It feels like someone is trying to tear him apart, little by little, so he can feel every single inch of him breaking.
For Dean, this was never really about the sex, it’s about the way Castiel will hold him for hours and hours until whatever terror Dean feels inside passes, it’s about the way Castiel’s legs feel all entangled in his in the middle of the night.
So Dean reaches out for Castiel’s hand, pulls it against his chest. He can feel Castiel hesitate, start to move his fingers away from Dean, but Dean grasps onto Castiel’s wrist. “Please, Cas. What are you doing? Don’t fucking do this—if you want to end this with me, just tell me.”
“I don’t. I don’t want this to end.” Castiel buries his face against the back of Dean’s neck, kissing it lightly. “What can I do to make you believe that—do you want my grace? It’s been so long since you let me give you my grace.”
Dean remembers that feeling, of inhaling Castiel’s grace, until he was healed, until he could sleep, until he was so goddamn high on Castiel he could forget about the apocalypses and the demons and the monsters. But this stopped being about Castiel’s grace and became only about how it felt to be so close to Castiel he could breathe him in, years ago. “I don’t want your grace, Cas.”
“What do you want?” Castiel’s words are low, and he speaks slowly, like he doesn’t know what to say or how to say it.
Dean rolls over onto his back, Castiel’s arm still crossing over his chest. He tilts his mouth up just enough to kiss Castiel, but Castiel doesn’t reciprocate at first, his tongue doesn’t slip into Dean’s mouth the way it usually does. His fingers don’t run down Dean’s cheek, or across Dean’s lips. And Dean is terrified of all the things that might be wrong right now, of all the things Castiel probably regrets, but Dean says it anyway. “You. I want you. But if you don’t want me—”
“I do.” Castiel rests his head on Dean’s shoulder, his hair brushing against Dean’s mouth. And there’s a loud stillness in the room for one minute or maybe five, Dean can’t tell, , before Castiel says, “I do, and the last thing I want to do right now is fight with you.”
“We’re not fighting—I just want to know what’s wrong. Is it this? You and me? Do you want it to not be such a fucking secret anymore?” Dean pulls Castiel’s head back, until he can feel Castiel’s mouth only inches from his own. And Dean knows what he’s saying, what he’s asking Castiel, is really just want he wants. For this to be something more than hidden glances and whispered yearning. He wants to tell Sam, because he’s sure Sam already knows. He wants to tell someone, anyone, so that this feels real.
But Castiel moves further back, sits up on the bed, Dean’s hand slipping down his body. “No. Things are so complicated as it is. We can’t tell anyone. We can’t—it’s too much.”
His words burn through Dean’s veins, make every part of him ache. To know that this will never be anything more than hushed touches that never leave this bed, or the walls of some shithole motel room in the middle of nowhere. “Yeah—yeah, you’re right, I guess.”
“Do you want me to go?” Castiel is speaking so quietly now that Dean can barely hear him.
Dean should probably say yes. He should probably tell Castiel they need to stop this, stop everything, and blame it on something other than the shattered things inside him. But, despite Castiel’s words, Dean needs him, needs to feel their bodies close together. “No—I don’t want you to leave. Let’s just do what we always do, okay?”
He slides up on the bed, until he’s facing Castiel, until he kisses him, until he’s pushing his tongue along the insides of Castiel’s mouth. He drags Castiel’s tie off his neck, finds the buttons to Castiel’s shirt, pulling them open without effort done this. Dean has done this so many times, in so many places, he doesn’t need even a hint of light to find his way to Castiel’s bare skin.
Castiel’s hands are still placed firmly on the bed, but Dean takes Castiel’s fingers with his own, directs them to the edges of his t-shirt. Dean exhales against Castiel’s mouth as Castiel’s fingertips brush over his chest, as the cotton t-shirt moves over his head and lands somewhere beside him.
Pushing Castiel back onto the bed, Dean lets his mouth run along Castiel’s neck, to his stomach. And he doesn’t know why Castiel’s hands aren’t all over him the way they normally would be when they do this, but he doesn’t want to let himself think about it. He can’t let his mind go there, not right now, so he unzips Castiel’s pants, runs his tongue along the inside of Castiel’s thigh. Maybe, if he makes Castiel feel good enough, if he at least does this right, Castiel will want something more.
He takes Castiel into his mouth, but only a little, just enough to convince himself that Castiel still wants this, just enough to taste it in his throat. From somewhere in the dark, Castiel groans, lets his body fall back further into the mattress, his hands still lost somewhere along the sheets, somewhere far from Dean. Dean slips his mouth away, mumbles, “Cas—are you sure you want to?”
“Yes.” Castiel reaches up, fingers finally digging into the flesh on Dean’s arms, letting Dean collapse onto him. “Yes, I told you—.”
“Yeah, you told me. No strings attached here either, right?” Dean lets his boxer shorts slip onto the end of the bed so that he can drag his body, naked and hard and exhausted, along Castiel’s. So that he can feel every inch of Castiel against him. So that he can feel the way Castiel’s body is uncertain, reluctant, against his, in a way that it hasn’t been since the first few times they found themselves undressing each other in dark secluded places while the world and Heaven slept.
“Dean, that isn’t what I meant.” Castiel says, his lips brushing against Dean’s shoulder.
“It’s okay, it doesn’t matter.” Dean kisses him, because he needs to cut him off, because he doesn’t want to hear this anymore. All he wants is to feel numb. So he runs his tongue along Castiel’s lips, until Castiel’s mouth falls open, until their kisses are in disarray along each other’s chins and necks and shoulders.
Dean tells himself that even if this is all they ever have, that if the I love you that once slipped out of his mouth on some deserted road really meant nothing to Castiel, it’s okay. Because at least, right now, with Castiel’s hand running down his back, and their hips grinding together, Dean can pretend that maybe Castiel really is in love with him, that whatever is hanging over Castiel tonight has nothing to do with him.
And Dean can pretend this all means something to Castiel, as his body slides back onto the mattress beside Castiel. He’s face-down in his pillow as Castiel’s mouth trails down his back, as Castiel reaches across him, into the nightstand drawer, for the crumpled tube they’ve used so many times before. “Do you want me to?” Castiel mumbles against Dean’s ear. “I want to.”
“Yes,” is all Dean says, turning his face to Castiel just to feel something in Castiel’s kiss that might be fear, might be regret, might be a million things that Dean doesn’t want to know right now. But Castiel’s mouth lingers on Dean’s as he slips his fingers inside Dean, as he slips himself inside Dean, as their bodies move together in the rhythm they’ve repeated so many times.
There’s a moment, in the middle of fucking, when Castiel pulls Dean against him, when he puts his face down on Dean’s shoulder, and Dean can feel the wet streaks forming across Castiel’s eyes, dripping down to his cheeks. When he can feel Castiel inhale sharply, trying to control himself. “Cas, are you crying? Cas—you don’t need to do this—”
“I do.” Castiel kisses him again. His fingers slip through Dean’s on the bed, and he holds Dean’s hand there as he quickens his pace, the bedsprings blaring in the quiet. “I need this more than you could ever know.”
Then why won’t you let us have a fucking chance to be happy? Dean wants to scream those words, over the sound of Castiel’s body inside of his. But he can’t let himself break this moment, where Castiel is so deep within him, he’s all Dean can feel anywhere, everywhere. He can’t break this moment, when Castiel comes, and he bites down lightly into the skin just above Dean’s shoulder blade, to silence a moan that tonight sounds more like sobbing.
Dean is on his back, with Castiel’s face buried in between his legs, even before he can say a word, before he can beg Castiel to confess whatever secret he’s hiding. He tells himself he shouldn’t want this, shouldn’t love this so much, when Castiel is maybe falling apart, but Castiel’s mouth is persistent, almost rough, against him, until he feels himself release.
And Dean wants to say something, he wants to say I love you, but he keeps himself silent, and he feels like he’s drowning in his own unspoken words.
There’s a glimmer of light, shining in from under the door, and Dean squints against the darkness at Castiel’s outline, engulfed in the shadows of his bedroom, engulfed in the shadows of their maybe-meaningless fucking. “Don’t leave, okay.” Dean reaches out toward him. “I don’t know what the hell is going on with you—but stay here with me, okay? If you aren’t going to tell me what the fuck happened in Heaven, at least don’t go somewhere alone like this.”
“Nothing happened in Heaven. Everything is fine.” Castiel lies down on the bed, rubs his fingers along his eyes. “But I’m not going anywhere tonight.”
Dean presses his body up against Castiel’s again, and Castiel slips back an inch, two inches, away from him. No strings attached. Dean reminds himself. Because maybe all of the strings are his own, and they’re choking him.