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Grounded	By : mistresswhimsy Category: Supernatural > Slash - Male/Male Views: 1948 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Nothing about Supernatural is mine, everything belongs to its rightful owner. I make no money from the show or this story. Also, the lyrics are from Learning To Fly by Pink Floyd, and I don't own that song or make money from it, ei

Chapter List
- 1-Grounded
- 1
This is an answer to this prompt from karmascars:

~Prompt: Castiel refuses to tell an arch-demon where (Sam and) Dean (are/)is, so the arch-demon gets creative. Massive angel!whumping. You decide when and how he gets rescued, and the details of his recovery. There must be wing!smut, and either Destiel or Wincestiel. Bonus points if Cas gets his angel mojo on in some new and interesting ways. Extra bonus points if you write a bit where Cas is holding his partner (or one of his partners) up with his wings while he fucks into them.~

This was supposed to be a one shot. Instead, it has become a verse. I blame Karma. :-P. There will be at least three more stories following this one, possibly four.

Karma also edited this story, and because she is awesome and patient and totally insane (which is a compliment, by the way) this story looks and flows a LOT better than it did when I first sent it to her. THANKS FOR PUTTING UP WITH MY STUPID MISTAKES, KARMA!

This is set sometime during season 5 and contains slash, wing!kink, angel!whumping, and a good deal of smut. If any of this makes you queasy, that's what the back button is for. If not, read on, and please review if you like it! ^_^

...*...

Earthbound Angel Verse
Grounded

*

“Condition grounded, but determined to try.”
~Pink Floyd, Learning to Fly~

*

They wouldn't stop coming!

Castiel's sword arced through the air like silver lightning, cutting through demons with a speed that belied his human appearance, and still they kept coming. It wasn't the first demon horde he'd faced, and it certainly wouldn't be the last, but there was an unusual level of focus to this group. Some of the demons were actively attempting to kill each other just to get to him, as though some prize awaited the lucky one who laid a hand on the angel.

He should simply (as Dean would put it) “beam away”, but that would leave the rest of the town defenseless. If there was one thing he had learned with the Winchester brothers, beyond free will, it was to become what angels were always meant to be: protectors of humanity.

A particularly fierce demon surged from the writhing depths of the horde and lunged straight for his throat. Cas twisted to the side, sword flying, but another demon came up behind him and grabbed his wrist. Castiel let out a snarl that sounded suspiciously similar to the noise Dean would make when the man was backed up against a wall. He twisted again, but more demons had seen the opening and surged forward, taking hold of his arms, his legs, his throat. The first demon grabbed a fist full of his hair, yanking his head back so that he couldn't see the others, and when Castiel felt the sword ripped from his hand he let out a stark cry of fear. He tried to take flight, but something held him firmly in place, and a shudder wracked his vessel when he realized one of the demons had tangled itself into his wings, holding him down, preventing the use of his grace.

And then it all stopped. The other demons in the horde abruptly vanished, leaving only the five keeping Castiel from fleeing. The angel panted his exertion harshly through clenched teeth, his eyes unable to see anything but the cloud-darkened sky above. There was a holy kind of rage building within him, directed not just at the demons who dared hold an Angel of the Lord against his will, but at the brothers and sisters who had abandoned him, who should have been there to help him in this fight. His new family flashed through his mind, but the Winchesters were miles away, and he had no wish to involve the two reckless men -- who would no doubt come charging to his aid despite the danger -- in this situation.

“So, this is the rebel angel.”

The new voice, thick and sweet as poisoned honey, drew shivers down Castiel's spine. He tried to pull his head forward to see, but the hand in his hair refused to budge. The voice was feminine, but that didn't help Castiel in the slightest -- the possessed person could have been anyone. His grace writhed where it was trapped within the celestial energy of his wings, fighting against his captors in an attempt to get a look at this new demon with his angelic eyes.

“What do you want?” Cas finally growled. He didn't bother to ask who he was dealing with; without seeing, he could sense that before him stood an arch-demon. Beings that powerful didn't achieve their immense age by being stupid enough to give others the power of their names.

“Sam and Dean,” the arch-demon replied immediately. Her voice was so damn smooth... Cas felt a strange, shivering feeling across his skin, something he did not like, but at the same time felt that perhaps he was supposed to. “And if you tell me where they are, I will let you go.”

Castiel resisted the urge to snort, something he'd picked up from watching Sam get frustrated with Dean so many times. It suddenly made sense why all the demons had been trying to catch him rather than kill him; this new foe had likely been sent by Lucifer as a new method to try and collect the resistant brothers. Though if any of them thought that they could get to Sam and Dean through him, they were vastly mistaken.

The tip of a thin, feminine finger suddenly trailed down his exposed throat. It wouldn't kill him, but Castiel felt himself shudder anyway, having been in this body too long for certain things to no longer affect him. Human instinct screamed at the touch in such a vulnerable place, in such a dangerous situation, and Castiel suddenly wondered somewhat whimsically if this was what it felt like to be prey.

“You really don't want to deny me, Castiel,” she said, low and dangerous, and again Castiel felt that strange, sliding sensation. Was it the seductive power of some demons, at work on his vessel's vulnerable human body? “I have ways of hurting you that you cannot even imagine.”

Castiel believed her, if only because of the presence of demonic essence in his wings. That had never happened before, as far as he knew, or a lot more angels would have fallen a lot sooner. “I will not tell you where they are,” Castiel growled stubbornly, then shut his mouth and stared rebelliously at the sky.

“Excellent.” The word was hissed with such pleasure that Castiel had to fight another, fearful shiver. The finger at his throat became a hand, gripping so tightly that had he needed to breathe, he would not have been able to do so. A few quiet words were spoken in the ancient language of demons, and then Castiel was swallowed in a blackness that consumed his consciousness as eagerly as a demon consumed a human soul.

...*...

“Cas!”

Nothing. Dean frowned, staring with the first sparks of concern at the sky, though he had no idea why he always looked up to pray. Cas never appeared above him. Maybe it was just old superstitions, but whatever the case, he never had been able to shake the habit.

“Cas, man! Get your feathery butt down here!” Dean yelled skyward.

Nothing.

“Damn it,” Dean muttered, frustration seeping in. He glared at the nearby sign that had welcomed the brothers to Wichita, Kansas, as though he could blame everything on the state that always seemed to try and draw the Winchesters home.

The grating creak of hinges left to rust made Dean twist his head over his shoulder. Sam had poked his head outside, and even though he was several yards away the older hunter could see his eyes were wide with the same concern that was growing in rapid leaps and bounds in Dean's mind. “Nothing?”

“Nothin'.” Dean raked a hand through his hair as he turned and walked back towards his brother. “This is weird, man. Cas doesn't usually take this long to answer.”

“Especially not you.” Sam said it quickly, almost flippantly, and he ducked back inside before Dean could ask just what the hell that meant.

“Hey!” Dean followed after his little brother, found him typing rapidly away at his laptop as though he hadn't said a word. How long was the battery life on that thing, anyway? Dean could swear he'd had it going since that morning, and it wasn't like there was any power in the abandoned house. “What do you mean, especially me?”

Sam shrugged, though Dean saw something flash in his eyes, too quickly for him to tell what it was. “Dean, I've called Cas twice since he became our friend. The first time it took him three days to answer, and the second time it was almost a week. When you call, he's there in like five seconds flat.”

“So?” Sometimes, Dean used 'so' as an escape route, but this time he knew the look on his face reflected the word; he really had no idea what Sam was trying to say.

“So... I dunno,” Sam hedged suddenly, turned studiously back to whatever was on his screen. “I guess he just likes you better.”

Damn it, no. Even after all the crap they'd been through with Lucifer and demon blood, Dean still couldn't stand to see Sammy put himself down like that. Especially not now that they'd finally clawed their way back to trusting each other again. “Come on, man, that's not true. You're Cas's friend just as much as me.”

Sam hitched up one shoulder. “It's okay if he likes you better. He did fight through Hell to get to you. Besides, I think he's still getting over seeing me as some kind of demonic surrogate.”

Dean opened his mouth to protest again, but he could see that Sammy had dug his proverbial heels in, which meant there would be no getting through to him until he either quit being so mulish or got drunk -- neither of which was highly likely. So, instead he asked “What've you got?”, waving his hand at the laptop.

“Omens,” Sam replied immediately. “Some pretty serious ones. We might be dealing with something bigger than the average demon.”

“Awesome,” Dean muttered, and then he paused when an idea suddenly struck. “Wait... you don't think that's what happened to Cas?”

Sam paused too, his eyes widening briefly, and Dean was secretly pleased he'd thought of it before his annoyingly intelligent brother. “If it's a particularly strong demon, and Cas is cut off from Heaven...” Sam grimaced. “Yeah, it's possible.”

“Crap.” Dean scrubbed a hand through his hair again, and then strode to the bed and pulled his flask out of his duffel. There was just enough Jack Daniel's left in there to burn pleasantly as it slid down his throat. “All right, can you pinpoint exactly where the omens are popping up?”

Sam frowned doubtfully, but his fingers were already flying over the keys. “Not exactly,” he said a moment later. “But I can get it down to about a three mile radius.”

Dean tried to keep from wincing. They'd found less in larger areas before, but this was Cas, damn it, and he might be suffering. “Okay, what've you got?”

Sam's fingers flew again. Dean couldn't help but marvel at how fast his brother could type. The older hunter wasn't a turtle when it came to the keyboard, but he definitely couldn't fly hare-quick across one like Sam could. It was those damn long fingers of his, Dean thought as he eyed them in a distantly thoughtful manner. If they held their hands up together, Dean bet Sam's fingers would go a good ways past his own.

Lowering himself onto the bed, Dean tossed his empty flask on the comforter, and continued to watch his little brother. Sometimes it still amazed him how much bigger Sam was now. He'd been such a tiny little kid, right up until he'd turned sixteen, and then all of a sudden he'd just sprouted like a weed. Still, even after he'd grown taller than Dean, he hadn't really filled out until the last couple of years. Now he was huge, well toned and fit from hunting, and sometimes Dean felt miffed that his 'little' brother was so much bigger than he was.

Still, it didn't stop Dean from treating him like his little brother -- because even if Sam was a goddamn mammoth now, he was still Dean's to protect.

“Are you staring at me for a reason?” Sam asked, without looking away from the screen.

Dean blinked, and then shrugged and cracked a cheeky grin. “Just watching your freakishly fast typing.”

Sam actually turned at that, raising his eyebrows at Dean because he'd never really been able to lift just the one. “Dean, I quit typing like five minutes ago.”

“Did you?” Huh, Dean hadn't noticed. He shrugged again. “Guess I'm zoning. Been a long day.”

Sam made a grunting sound that was probably an agreement. He turned back to the laptop, and Dean noticed that when Sam started typing again he cast several not-so-subtle glances in his older brother's direction. Unable to resist, Dean waggled his eyebrows at Sam in as lewd a manner as he could, and he laughed when Sam glared daggers at him and refused to look his way again.

“Okay, so that area is pretty much made up of apartment complexes and housing,” Sam said after a moment.

“So no conveniently empty warehouses.” Dean let out a sigh because life just wasn't that nice to them. “Awesome. What the hell are we gonna do, start banging down doors and yell 'Christo' at everyone we see?”

“How the hell should I know?” Sam barked, but the snappish tone and bitchface he threw Dean were nothing compared to the real fight they would have been in at this point mere months ago. It was more habit than anything else for Sam to snap, and it was just as much a habit for Dean to keep goading him until the legendary pout Sam had perfected at the age of five appeared.

“There has gotta be a better way to track a demon,” Dean muttered, wishing he could throw together the demonic equivalent of an EMF detector.

It was Sam's turn to rake a hand through his ridiculously long hair, and as usual Dean was overcome with the urge to either attack it with scissors or pet it. Well, okay, the petting thing was new, but it was difficult not to think like that when Sam was looking more and more like someone's long-haired mutt.

“If there was some way for us to see or track angel wards...” Sam's fingers twitched towards the keyboard, then changed direction and grabbed his phone instead. Dean knew without looking who he was calling.

“Bobby? Yeah...” Sam told the old hunter where they were and what they were trying to do. Dean half listened, picking at one of the straps on his duffel and wondering if he had more booze in the car. It wasn't as though a few more drinks would really touch him anymore, and between zoning out on his brother and worrying about Castiel, Dean felt he could really use the familiar and welcome burn right about now.

“Great, thanks Bobby!” Sam sounded much more cheerful as he hung up, which Dean took as a good sign. “Okay, so Bobby found something that should let us track the magic used to draw angel wards, assuming it was done in the last few days.”

That got Dean's attention, and he focused the entirety of it on his brother. “What do we need?” We're comin', Cas, he added silently.

“Holy oil, a bowl to burn it in, and this.” Sam held up a piece of paper with several bizarre words scrawled across it. “It's Enochian, not sure what it says but it'll let us see the energy created by the magic, and we can follow it right to the source.”

“That's assuming that the demon has Cas,” Dean pointed out. “If not, we're screwed.”

“Even if it doesn't, it might still have angel wards,” Sam countered. “It wouldn't be the first time, since the angels showed up.”

Dean still had a jar of the holy oil he and Cas had used to trap Raphael, so he grabbed that and a small bowl they used for the occasional spell. He poured as little as he could get away with into the bowl after setting it down on the beside table. Sam dropped a match into it, and once it was flaring brightly he recited the Enochian words on the page. Dean thought they sounded strange coming from Sam, but maybe that was just because he was so used to hearing Castiel's rough voice speaking the language so naturally.

The spell took effect instantly. One minute Dean was seeing as normally as any other human, and the next everything looked blurred, as though he were trying to look through someone's prescription glasses.

“What the hell?” Dean muttered, reaching up and rubbing one hand vigorously across his eyes.

“Wow, I didn't expect that.” Sam rubbed a hand across his own eyes, and then shook his head when it became apparent that his vision was stuck that way. “Guess the magic we're looking for will be clearer than everything else.”

“Great, but how the hell am I supposed to drive like this?” Dean grumbled agitatedly, swiping at his eyes again. He squinted, and thought he'd probably be able to make it if he drove slowly.

“If we stick to the back roads, we should be okay,” Sam said. He made a swipe for the keys, missed them entirely, and scowled in the general direction of the table as he went back, managing this time to grab them. He tossed them to Dean, who caught them out of sheer instinct, but still gloated like he'd done it entirely on purpose.

They had to creep down local roads at a pace Dean would never admit to under torture, but eventually their magically enhanced (or rather, decreased) vision caught sight of a barely-there gleam of bluish-white energy. At its brightest it cloaked an entire house, a nice, middle-class home in the middle of Kansan suburbia. If the situation weren't so potentially dire, Dean figured there would be a joke there somewhere. Silently, he parked across the street, and Sam said another word in Enochian that returned their vision to normal.

“I'm not sure if I feel better or worse about that working,” Dean mentioned as they climbed out of the car.

“Worse,” Sam supplied for him as he grabbed the knife. He tossed it to Dean before grabbing a canister of salt, as well as the shot gun.

“Sure you don't want this?” Dean asked, gesturing with the knife. They had come a long way since Lucifer had been freed, but he still worried that Sam might break down and try to use his abilities in a crisis.

“You haven't memorized the exorcism,” was Sam's answer. “And I can say it faster than you. Ready?”

Dean gripped the knife and nodded once. “Ready.”

...*...

Castiel had only taken a human vessel once before Jimmy. His name was Daniel. When Castiel had first come into existence a thousand or so years ago, he resided within Daniel, but only for a short time. Not nearly long enough to experience so many human sensations, or to wonder if he wanted to feel more, or to even begin to understand why others had fallen.

Not nearly long enough to feel pain.

Other angels scorned humans and their weakness to pain. So many in his garrison scoffed at how “easily” Dean had given in during his time in the pit. Even Castiel had wondered, as he gripped the screaming, reluctant soul so determined to stay mired in the punishment it thought it deserved. He'd wondered if Dean had given in too quickly, though he'd not said as much to the man, and had been less harsh about it, even in thought, than his older siblings.

Now, he knew what no other angel -- except perhaps Lucifer – did; humans were in fact a thousand times stronger than angels.

The arch-demon had begun by chaining him face up on the floor of what appeared to be an old basement. The section where he lay was covered with angel wards, as were the chains around his wrists and ankles. Then she had simply stood there for several moments, gazing down at him, chin in hand, with the most peculiar look in her stolen eyes. Castiel couldn't for the life of him pin it down -- he was still too new to humanity's version of emotion -- but if he had to hazard a guess, he would have said she looked like a predator trying to decide where to tear into him first.

Up until that point Castiel had felt some fear, but nothing he hadn't become accustomed to since he began fighting with the Winchesters. But then the arch-demon had murmured a few words, a spell he didn't recognize and suddenly Castiel's grace, while still intact, had been sealed away out of reach.

“All right, angel, how shall I begin?” The demon stepped forward, smiling obscenely. She curled one of her hands right over his face, and Castiel had found himself eying her too-long nails with apprehension. “One last chance. Tell me where they are.”

“No,” Castiel said with finality.

The arch-demon's grin stretched impossibly wider. “Oh, I'm so glad you said that.”

One finger dove downward, and as it punctured his eye, Castiel screamed.

It was the first time he had felt true pain, not mere echoes of it from Jimmy's body. His limbs thrashed and pulled at their bonds in a desperate attempt to flee, to shrink back, anything to get away from the searing burn as it traveled from his eye throughout his entire head. It was overwhelming, and suddenly he could not possibly fathom how much pain Dean had experienced during his time in hell.

How had he held out for thirty years?

“Stop!” Castiel heard himself choke, and the arch-demon withdrew her finger with a sickening pop. The tortured socket throbbed. She smiled, and as he watched with his remaining eye she slid the blood-slick finger into her mouth.

“Mm, angel blood. Wonderful.” She gave her finger one last lick and let her hand fall. “I think I'll leave your other eye. Let you watch.”

Cas shuddered, and he had to choke back something suspiciously close to a sob when she reached for him again.

At first, the arch-demon just used her nails. They hurt, but Castiel would have given anything to go back to them when she brought out a dull, rusty old blade. She'd plunge it into his flesh slowly, so that he felt every inch as it sunk into his body. He didn't bother trying to contain his screams, eventually unable to recognize the pleading that poured uninhibited from his lips. When he still refused to speak, beyond broken pleas, the demon switched to shattering his bones. Nothing in his limbs yet, he noticed distantly, but she painstakingly snapped every one of his ribs.

“Still won't talk?” There was something about that line that made Castiel wonder through the pain if Dean would call it cliché. Then the arch-demon smiled, a twisted, delighted smile, and Castiel forgot even his pain as the fear of that expression crawled unpleasantly across the surface of his damaged skin.

Stepping closer, the arch-demon lifted both of her hands and held them over Castiel's body. She began to speak, her eyes flashing black, voice low and rough. It was such a relief to lie still without any new pain that for a moment Cas couldn't even bring himself to care what she was doing.

And then Jimmy's soul screamed.

“No!” Cas tried to curl in on himself, straining against the chains, senselessly attempting to physically shield the soul of this body, the soul he had come to care about greatly. “No, leave him out of this!”

“Tell me where the Winchesters are.”

Tears welled in Castiel's good eye, stung his injured one when Jimmy's soul screamed again, writhing in pain from the spell. “No,” he whispered, oblivious as the tears splashed against his cheeks. The pain had been unbearable, yet feeling Jimmy's pain was somehow so much worse. He felt he would do almost anything to free the devout man from such torment.

Anything... except give up the Winchesters.

The arch-demon let up the spell for a moment, and Castiel could feel Jimmy's soul retreating against his grace, seeking protection. I am so sorry, Castiel told him, within.

He expected the human soul to lash out at him, or ignore him, anything but immediately forgive him. It's not your fault, came the faint reply. It's not your --

The spell struck again, worse than before, and once again Castiel found himself trying anything to protect Jimmy from the pain, but there was nothing he could do while his grace was locked down. Nothing but share every shred of the agony that a soul should not have been able to feel. Trust a demon to come up with something so foul, so perverse as touching, tearing apart the very essence of a human.

“Tell me where the Winchesters are,” the arch-demon said again, and this time there was a growl of frustration in her voice.

That small victory gave Castiel the courage to look her in the eye and snarl, “No!” yet again.

The demon screamed, and she wrenched her arms suddenly upwards, crying out a single word in the twisted, dark language of demons.

Jimmy screamed one last time... and was gone.

There was a moment of complete and utter shock when Castiel realized that he was alone in an empty shell. He felt his grace suddenly shift, expanding to fill the place that had once contained a human soul, flowing into the hollow places within his vessel until it was filled with nothing but himself. It was no longer Jimmy's body, he realized with a hollow ring of shock. It was his.

Had he been in any other situation, Castiel would have wondered what that meant, what would happen now. No angel had ever been housed within a vessel that was entirely their own. Not ever. As it was, he didn't have the luxury of time, and the arch-demon was already leaning down towards him.

“I wonder what happens to an angel if he's trapped alone in a human body?” The question was left to hang there in the air between them, voicing the thoughts Castiel might have had -- with more time, and less shock and pain. “How does it feel knowing you couldn't save your precious little human soul, Castiel?”

The angel did something very human then, something Sam or Dean might have done in his situation. He spat in the demon's face. The saliva was full of blood, and when it splattered he laughed darkly at the wet specks of red clinging to her borrowed skin.

“Fine, then,” she growled. “You asked for it.” She looked so comical, covered in bloody droplets, that he just laughed harder. It was a relief, this laughter, and he barely recognized his own voice as it rose into a cackle.

Then the arch-demon spoke another few words and Castiel found himself lying face down on the stone floor, the chains somehow still tight against his ve -- his skin. Two hands came down against his shoulder blades, making him flinch in the expectation of pain. None came. Instead more words, this time ones he recognized as a perverted form of Enochian, poured from the arch-demon's mouth, and something began to happen in his back. He could suddenly feel his wings, freed from the grip of the demon who'd held them. They were still tucked away within him, yet something about them felt... odd. His wings were just a form of energy on this plane, but all of a sudden it was though he could really feel them, the way he now felt his skin and the sensations against it, with more clarity then he ever had while Jimmy was still with him.

“What are you doing?” he heard himself muttering nervously.

“Giving myself something more to play with,” the arch-demon replied delightedly, and then she began to pull her hands upwards.

Cas felt it, not a pain, but a sense like something was being slowly pulled from within his back. His wings, he realized, shocked beyond measure. She was forcing his wings to become material. He could feel them stretching out behind him, huge and solid and there in the physical world. They involuntarily flexed, muscles he'd never before possessed bunching and working. The air caressed gently through very real feathers, and Cas let out a little shiver that had nothing to do with pain.

“What have you done?!” he cried, trying to pull the wings in against his back. Two strong hands gripped the bones reaching from between his shoulder blades and gripped tightly.

“I told you,” she purred. “Giving myself something more to play with.”

Her fingernails dug into the skin where wing and flesh met, and Castiel scrabbled uselessly at the floor as that new pain surged blindingly through his body.

“Oo, sensitive, are they?” she said with a malicious little chuckle. Her hands moved away from the base and gripped what would have been the radius bone if these were bird wings, but who knew if the same general rules applied to his own? He managed to twist his head over his shoulder enough to see that they looked very similar to a bird's wings, and they bent in the same fashion.

Then the arch-demon's hands gripped tightly on both sides of his wings, and then snapped them upwards.

Nothing she had done previously could compare to the searing, absolute agony he felt now. He could feel it in his grace, in much the same way as he imagined Jimmy had felt it in his soul. The scream that wrenched from his throat contained as much of his true voice as the spell holding back his grace would allow, and the ground beneath him rumbled threateningly, the lights overhead shattered and blinked out. The arch-demon just laughed and snapped two more bones, and then ground them beneath her hands until the shards crumbled to dust, still trapped in his skin.

Castiel had never wished for the human ability to lose consciousness more than he did right then.

It went on for nearly an hour, breaking and snapping and grinding and crumbling, until Castiel's newly physical wings were nothing more than mangled, crumbled heaps of feathers sagging from his back. The angel was sobbing, convulsing uncontrollably with the force of the pain and his weeping and unable to stop it, but he refused to give in. He wouldn't tell her where his family was, and if he could survive this then there was nothing she could do to wrest it from him.

“You're a resilient little shit, I'll give you that,” she said, sitting back on her heels. She almost sounded impressed. She opened her mouth to say something more, or maybe cast another spell... and suddenly froze. Pushing herself to her feet, she strode to the door and peered up the stairs, her expression focused. She let out a sigh and said a single word Cas didn't recognize, and suddenly the room was filled with demons. Somehow, despite the pain, Cas's entire tortured body tensed.

They were here.

Only the Winchesters would cause an arch-demon to summon every bit of help she had on hand, and Castiel groaned quietly at the knowledge that all his suffering had been for naught. Those damned brothers were going to get themselves killed because they couldn't just let him be, couldn't leave someone they had come to accept as one of their own to suffer. But as much as he wanted to curse their rashness, a part of him was practically singing with relief and joy, because these two supposedly insignificant humans were charging head first into danger to save him, when his brothers and sisters refused.

He heard them seconds later, shouting warnings to each other as they ran down the stairs. Several bodies fell through the doorway, nearly knocking down the arch-demon. She let out a snarl and backed into the horde she had summoned, using them as shields as she worked her way back towards Castiel's broken form.

No sooner had she reached him then Sam and Dean came barreling through the doorway, Dean wielding the demon-killing blade, Sam blasting them with rock salt from his shot gun as he recited the words to exorcise them. Castiel was torn between wanting to scream at them for being so stupid and wanting to cry in relief at the fact that they were actually there.

Both men spotted him within seconds of each other. Sam's expression twisted into a snarl of fury. Dean let out a bestial cry and dove into the mass of demons, swinging his blade with an ferocity that reflected the look in Sam's eyes.

Castiel's grace screamed from within his mangled wings, the essence of him writhing in pain and desperation as he watched the reckless Winchesters fighting their way towards him. The arch-demon began to back away, her black eyes flashing vehemently, and Castiel saw his chance. Or rather, he felt it. Whether it was a side effect of the arch-demon's spells, her lack of concentration, or just some unexpected miracle, the wards were no longer holding him in place. He gathered every bit of his agonized grace, along with every inch of his screaming body, and lifted himself into a crouch.

Across the room, despite the demons milling about his body, Dean managed to meet Castiel's eyes. The angel saw fear, but it was smothered by an anger and a desperation that drove every motion of his arm, every dive of the blade. Demons fell screaming in numbers that were truly amazing, considering it was a mere human wielding nothing but a knife, but then again, Dean had never been a 'mere' anything to Cas.

He was doing well, and so was Sam, but they were outnumbered. Any minute now they would be overwhelmed, and Castiel had just one chance to stop it.

With a strangled scream, Castiel outstretched his broken wings as far as they would go, stretching and bending muscles that should not have been there in the first place. The arch-demon glanced at him with an agitated scowl that quickly turned to a cry of fear. She stumbled back, her eyes wide as she threw minor demons in front of herself. It didn't matter, Castiel thought with a dark satisfaction that scared him with it's humanity. Nothing in the room would survive this, save those he wished to keep alive.

Still crouched down nearly on all fours, Castiel began to move in a tight, boxy circle, as far as his restraints would allow -- up and side and back and side, those wings held aloft and whirling faster than his body – with his knees bent, hands pressed flat against the cold concrete, trying desperately to ignore the pain. Released from the focus of the arch-demon's spell now that she was distracted, Castiel was able to tap into his grace so that it could help him surge into inhuman speeds, until his wings became a blur of black cutting through the air above him. Energy crackled in sparks of blue and white, dancing and gathering, and when it reached a critical apex he flapped those broken wings down, hard, and the energy exploded from the tips in a snapping whirlwind, searing through the air to shred the demons as though they were made of tissue paper. It vaporized the chains that bound him, as they had been created in hell, but passed harmlessly through Sam and Dean, who were staring at him now with expressions of utter disbelief. Castiel hardly noticed – the pain ripping through him from the effort of expelling his grace was blinding. He could hear himself screaming, but he didn't stop until he saw the last demon fall. The arch-demon's borrowed body was already crumpled on the floor, and he knew with a surge of indignant, righteous fury that she had escaped.

Then it was over and Castiel finally allowed himself to collapse, his cheek striking the hard floor.

“Cas!” Dean was there as he began to lose consciousness, touching his shoulders, tentatively checking over his wings as he issued some choice words regarding their sudden existence. Sam's larger hands joined Dean's, sliding in tender examination over the angel's face, his arms and legs. Cas sighed, the relief of being in the arms of those who cared for him so powerful that he allowed the very human experience of falling unconscious to take him, too far gone to wonder why only now the ability to 'pass out' had come to him.

...*...

“He's unconscious,” Dean repeated for what felt like the millionth time since bringing Cas back to the abandoned house.

“We covered that,” Sam said wearily, though he still put a hand on Dean's shoulder in a silent offer of comfort.

Dean stared down at Castiel, lying still as death (and just as pale) on an old, queen-sized mattress. Dean had found it thrown in a corner of the broken-down house. He'd tossed a sheet he'd stolen from a motel at some point over it, if only because he couldn't bring himself to set Cas down on something so old and dusty without a little protection. The brothers had put him face down, wary of the startlingly physical, sickeningly tattered wings. Dean shuddered at the thought of how much pain Castiel must be in, and he felt an echo of the pure rage he'd felt when he saw that demon (arch-demon? It had felt, and acted, different from the others) standing over the angel's tortured form. He wanted to find that demon, he thought with dark intent, and rip it slowly to shreds.

“Poor guy,” Dean muttered aloud. He reached down and turned Castiel's face carefully to the side. He knew the angel didn't need to breathe, but he just couldn't help himself. Unless... Cas was unconscious, a pretty clear sign of humanity. Maybe he did need to breathe right now.

Apparently, Dean couldn't just stop there. He didn't know what good it would do, but he went to the trunk of the Impala and got some clean rags and a metal bowl they kept there for particularly bad injuries. He took them inside and placed them by Cas's mattress, and then went back out and grabbed a gallon of water and some disinfectant. He wasn't too thrilled that the water was going to be cold, but then again, Cas was an angel, so hopefully it wouldn't matter.

“Do you think he needs that?” Sam asked as Dean poured some of the water in the bowl.

“He's unconscious,” Dean repeated yet again. “I think super angel healing is kinda out of the question.”

Sam sighed and nodded in agreement. “The wings... I wonder how they did that,” he mused. “I didn't think Castiel's wings were... well, corporeal.”

Dean shrugged and refused to admit that he wasn't sure what “corporeal” meant. “I want to know how he went Tasmanian Devil on all those demons. That was awesome.”

Sam winced. “It looked like it hurt him. Look at them, they're pulverized.” Carefully, he brushed his fingers over the crooked feathers. “I can't imagine how much pain he must have been in.”

“Why do you think he did it?” Dean asked. He dipped a cloth in the water and wrung it out, then spent what felt like at least ten minutes just staring. He didn't have the faintest idea where to start.

“I don't think he had much of a choice, Dean.”

“No shit, Sherlock. I mean why he didn't tell them anything.” Dean decided Cas's face was as good a place as any to start, and he carefully began wiping away the blood caked into his forehead. “He could have told them something.”

Sam crouched down beside Dean, his hands hovering over the wings, as though trying to decide if he should attempt to set them. “The demon probably would have known he was lying.”

“Yeah.” Dean moved down over Castiel's cheeks. The wounds beneath the blood hadn't healed at all, and Dean buried how badly that scared him by focusing on his work.

When he moved to Castiel's eyes, Dean discovered the demon had punctured the left one. The congealed blood had filled Cas's eye socket, and even Dean, with so much blood and gore beneath his belt that he could kick any horror movie's ass, couldn't help but shudder.

Dean knew there were more wounds on Castiel's chest and stomach, but he also knew he couldn't get to them without rolling the angel onto his newly physical wings, and there was no way he was putting the angel through that kind of pain. He decided to settle for cleaning off his arms and shoulders, and he was reaching out to remove Cas's coat when he realized the wings were in the way.

“Damn.” Dean sat back on his heels, contemplating the twisted appendages with a small frown, before he reached down and pulled a knife from his belt. “Sorry, Cas,” he muttered as he slid it easily through the fabric of Cas's coat and shirt.

“It was ruined anyway,” Sam offered as he took the bloodied and ripped clothing and threw them in a pile in the corner.

Dean shrugged. “He can probably fix it, once he's better.” He said it nonchalantly, like it was just a matter of fact, but the wounds still weren't healing, and that was still pretty damn scary. He hadn't seen anything capable of knocking the angel on his ass like this until now.

Castiel pulled in a sudden, slow breath through his nose, and he shifted just a little towards Dean's hand. The hunter paused, hope flaring brightly as he pulled the cloth away and bent sideways, trying to get a better view of Castiel's face. “Cas? You in there, man?”

Cas's remaining eye fluttered open. For a moment panic filled his mangled expression, until his gaze landed on Dean and he visibly relaxed. “Dean,” he murmured, his voice even rougher than usual. “You should... you should not have come.”

“We were worried, Cas,” Sam spoke up. He knelt by the bed, his eyes all soft and empathetic, and Dean told himself to make sure he teased Sam for being girly later. “Dean and I both called you, but you never answered.”

“It's not... the first time,” Cas admitted regretfully.

“First time in that long,” Dean said with a shrug. “Sam found major demonic omens in this town, and we thought hey, maybe they have Cas. Couldn't just leave you.”

A very small, though pained, smile creased the corners of Cas's eyes. Or eye. Dean repressed another shudder. “The arch-demon was trying to find you and Sam, probably for Lucifer. I refused to tell her your whereabouts. Your barging in to save me nearly negated my efforts to keep you safe.”

“So we were supposed to just let you suffer?” Sam shook his head. “We wouldn't do that, Cas. You're our friend.”

The smile grew fractionally wider, just for a moment, before Castiel let out a sudden cry. His hands clenched into the sheet and his face went white as he shook with pain. Dean and Sam exchanged helpless expressions, unable to do anything more than watch as the angel rode it out.

“Cas, why aren't you healing?” Dean asked when the angel finally appeared to relax.

Castiel winced, which looked really bizarre with only one eye. “The arch-demon cast several spells of her own creation on me that allowed her to hurt me in ways she would not have been able to, were I still able to heal.”

“Shit. How do we fix it?”

Cas paused. He glanced between Sam and Dean a moment, and then said quietly, “I believe there is a way, but... you will not like it.”

“Cas, it's okay, just tell us,” Sam said gently.

“Unfortunately, Sam, you can do nothing to help.” Even as he said the words Castiel reached out, touching Sam's hand with the tips of his fingers to soften the sting of his words. “This is something only Dean can accomplish.”

“Me? Why me?” Dean shifted uncomfortably, as though he were being told he was the Righteous Man all over again. He really hated being the only thing that could save humanity, or in this case, a seriously busted-up angel.

Cas cried out again, and they had to watch him ride out another spasm of pain before he was able to answer. “Dean,” he gasped, “when I rebuilt you I used a little of my grace. You have a... what you might call a piece of my soul within you. There should be a way for you to use it to help me heal, and once the process begins it should help to replenish my grace.”

Oh. That wasn't so bad. “Shouldn't be too bad. What do I have to do?”

“I think... you'll have to touch me,” Cas said slowly.

Sam blinked owlishly while Dean just frowned in confusion. “What, like this?” he reached out and touched Castiel's shoulder, almost missing Sam's sudden chuckle.

“No. My wings would probably be best. They are not supposed to be physical, but they are a manifestation of my true self. They should respond to my grace inside you.”

Sam burst out laughing. When Dean twisted to glare at him, his brother only laughed harder. “Dude, you have a piece of Cas all up inside you,” Sam snickered.

“Shut up!” Dean swung, cuffing his brother on the side of his massive head, but Sam only continued to snicker like a teenager with a dirty secret as he scrambled back to avoid further strikes.

“I don't understand.” Castiel peered between the two with a frown of confusion furrowing his brow. “Why is it amusing that Dean has a piece of my grace inside him?”

“Because Sam is actually a teenage girl in a guy's body,” Dean growled, but that only confused Cas all the more. The guy wasn't dumb, Dean had learned that very quickly (anyone clever enough to come up with the idea of carving an angel banishing sigil into their own chest in order to banish five other angels definitely wasn't stupid, just reckless as all hell), but when it came to the everyday interactions of most humans, he was, for the most part, clueless.

“So, I'm just gonna run into town and get some more first aid supplies, maybe some food too,” Sam said suddenly. He leaped to his feet and grabbed the Impala's keys before Dean could so much as open his mouth to protest. “I'll be gone for a while, so you...” he snickered again. “Do what you gotta do.”

“Sam...!” Dean started, but his brother was already gone, and a moment later he heard the Impala's engine roar to life, the gravel spray as Sam peeled out.

“Damn it,” Dean muttered, but he ignored his annoying little brother for now and turned back to his angel. “All right, wings. You sure you want me to touch them? I mean... they look like they hurt.”

“They are extremely painful,” Castiel stated, far too smoothly for the one who was in that kind of torment. “But if you do not touch them, they will only stay that way.”

All right, he could get that. It was like setting a dislocated shoulder; yeah, it was gonna hurt like hell, but it wouldn't get any better until you pushed through the pain. “Okay. I'm just going to crawl up here beside you, tell me if I hurt you too much, okay?”

Castiel nodded, and Dean carefully clambered up on the mattress beside him, settling right next to Cas's hip before reaching out carefully. The feathers were soft, unbelievably so, and he carded his fingers carefully through them until the tips met strong wing-bones. Cas hissed when Dean's fingers touched those bones, but he didn't move as Dean stroked outwards as far as he was able -- once healed, Cas's wings would likely span the length of the room -- before running carefully back down until he was touching the skin where shoulder met wing.

“Anything?” Dean asked.

A quiet, relieved sigh was his answer. When Cas twisted his head over his shoulder, his other eye had returned, and several small cuts had healed themselves. “Yes. Thank you. Continue?”

Dean nodded, and began to run his hands through the feathers again. Castiel settled back into the pillow, and a moment later he began to tremble minutely. At first Dean hardly noticed, assuming it was merely the relief of finally being able to heal, but the longer Dean ran his fingers through feathers and over slowly healing wing-bones, the more Castiel shuddered.

“Is this really helping?” Dean asked dubiously. The angel was shaking hard now, too damn hard in his opinion. The only thing he could think of to compare it to was the body-wracking shivers Sam had experienced while detoxing from demon blood, and that made him nervous as all hell.

“Yes.” Castiel's gravelly voice was even deeper than usual, almost a growl.

Dean arched one eyebrow curiously, but continued to run his fingers carefully through the soft, black feathers. “How'd she do this, anyway? Make your wings solid?”

“I don't know.” Cas was panting now, shifting oddly against the old sheet. “An angel's wings aren't supposed to be material unless we choose to fully manifest them while inside a vessel, and even then it is only a reflection of our true wings. I thought the spell would wear off after she lost focus on me, the others she used were lost as soon as she realized you were coming for her.”

Cautiously, Dean kneaded his fingertips along the arched, quivering wing-bones. He could feel them mending under his hands, watched with no small amount of relief as the slashes and bruises that peppered Castiel's back finally began to heal, but Cas's shaking was still bothering him. “You sure you're okay?” he repeated when a particularly fierce spasm wracked the angel's body.

“Dean.” And, okay, that sounded kind of like a moan. A lot like a moan. “I am... too okay.”

It was such a strange thing for Castiel to say that it took Dean nearly a full minute to realize exactly what that meant, and another twenty seconds to jerk his hands back as he finally realized why the angel was shaking so hard. “Dude, seriously? When did this go from first aid to some kind of a... wing kink?”

Cas pushed himself up on his elbows so he could peer quizzically over his shoulder at Dean. “Wing kink?” he repeated, confusion furrowing his brow. “No, never mind, I..I am sorry, Dean. I won't mention it again.”

Too late now, Dean thought with a sigh, but damn it, his angel was hurting, and he was hurting because he'd refused to tell that demon where they were. “Nah, it's okay,” Dean said, trying to sound lighter than he felt. He lifted his hands back to the wings, and told himself firmly that his touches were not tentative. “They sensitive or somethin'? Bet you just can't control it, right?” He was trying to assure himself as much as Cas.

“They are sensitive, but I don't think I would react this way if someone else was touching me.”

It was said in such a matter-of-fact manner that once again it took Dean a moment to realize what exactly he'd just said. “So you're turned on, because I'm the one doing this?” He did not just squeak, he did not just squeak...

“I... believe so. Yes.”

When Cas had first mentioned it, Dean's initial reaction of shock had been a knee-jerk one. Now that it had been clarified, though... the hunter frowned to himself as he continued to run his hands along the wing-bones. He wasn't into guys, he could say that with a fair amount of certainty, and it wasn't because he was homophobic, it just wasn't his thing. His life had been too damn strange for him to get hung up on something like two guys wanting to be together. Cas, though... Cas wasn't just a typical guy. Cas was an angel, his angel. He was the insanely powerful being that had forsaken his entire family because of Dean, for Dean. He was the one who had endured torture on a scale that Dean had only seen in the pit, just because he wouldn't give away Sam and Dean's location.

Carefully, Dean carded his fingers through the feathers just below the wing-bones. If he were honest with himself, he liked touching Castiel's wings. They were soft, and so strong that it was more than a little awe-inspiring. He liked knowing that his touch was helping to heal the angel, and... Dean couldn't help it, he chuckled at himself.

“What is it?” Castiel's voice was muffled by the sheet, but his tone was distinctly curious nonetheless.

“I just realized I don't mind that you're turned on by this,” Dean said, and this time the light tone was real. “Which is weird, because I am definitely a ladies' man, but... it's you, so I guess it doesn't matter.”

Castiel shifted so that his head was twisted over his shoulder, and Dean froze. The angel's eyes were dark, pupils blown so wide that only a thin ring of blue remained, and his breath was panting harshly past chapped, parted lips. The fact that Cas was that aroused, that he was the cause of it, hit Dean harder than expected. So hard, he found that arousal was starting to be reciprocated.

For what might have been a moment or an hour, Dean really couldn't tell anymore, the two stared at each other, and Dean grew more and more aware of the fact that he wasn't objecting to this. He was teetering on the critical edge of do-or-don't when Cas made the decision for him. He twisted around, his wings slipping from Dean's grasp as he folded himself in half sideways, curled his fingers around the back of Dean's neck, and pulled him down into a hesitant and obviously inexperienced kiss.

Several achingly long moments passed, and the two didn't move. Cas kept his touch and his grip light, giving Dean plenty of room to back out and run, and that was probably what ended up deciding it for Dean. Had Castiel pushed it, the hunter suspected he would have shoved the angel away and stormed off to pretend this never happened. Instead, Dean found himself tilting his head, fitting himself a little better against Castiel's body to better facilitate the kiss. The angel's lips were dry and soft, and as Cas began to mimic Dean's motions the hunter discovered that this kiss was much more assertive than that of most women. Castiel didn't yield beneath Dean's attention but rather demanded more, and he gave back just as much as he got, if much less expertly. Dean supposed he shouldn't have expected anything less of the angel who defied Heaven, all for him.

Dean sat back, just far enough to meet his angel's gaze. Cas was wide-eyed, as though the simple, chaste kiss was the most amazing thing he had ever experienced. Maybe it was.

“It didn't feel like that when I kissed Chastity.” For all his wide-eyed wonder, Castiel's voice was still remarkably steady.

Chastity? Oh right, den of iniquity. Dean had almost forgotten that little misadventure. “What did it feel like?” he heard himself asking.

Cas twisted closer, almost wrapping himself around Dean's knees. One wing brushed over Dean's shoulder, and he was almost overcome with the sudden need to he touching them again. “It felt nice,” Castiel said slowly, as though searching for the right words. “But it did not make me feel so... overwhelmed.” Cas leaned closer, so that their foreheads were barely brushing. “With you, it feels... powerful. My whole body felt it.” He pressed even closer, breath ghosting across Dean's lips. “I... I want more.”

And that was it. Hearing Castiel's gravel-voice not just asking, but demanding more of what only he could give made Dean lose it. So what if Cas is in a male vessel, he thought as he closed that tiny gap between them. It was Cas he wanted, and he could just get used to the package Cas came in.

Reaching up so that he was cupping the back of Castiel's head, fingers carded through soft hair, Dean tilted their heads just a bit more before sweeping his tongue across the angel's lips. He heard Cas gasp softly through his nose, and then those lips parted, granting him access. Dean started out slow, only just slipping his tongue in against the angel's. He'd had too many partners with too many preferences to just go for it, so he waited until Cas suddenly surged forward, pressing himself impossibly tighter against Dean as he sucked the hunter's tongue further into his mouth. Right, then. Cas was the sort that wanted it right down his throat. Dean could do that.

The hunter was getting ready to go for it when Cas suddenly sat back. His eyes were closed and he was breathing harshly, so Dean let him have a moment to compose himself before asking, “What is it?”

“I just...” Cas sucked in a deep breath and opened his eyes. Dean was suddenly stunned by the fact that he'd never noticed just how blue they were. “What do you like, Dean?”

Dean blinked, and then spent the next several seconds thoroughly burying thoughts of how adorable Cas was just then. “Hey, I'm not picky,” Dean said breezily, hoping his tone wasn't as strained as it sounded to him. It wasn't his fault, damn it, he'd never realized Cas could be so... cute. “It's pretty much all good to me.”

“But you must have preferences,” Cas insisted. “Teach them to me.”

Damn it! Dean scrabbled desperately for anything to say before he blurted out something stupid about Cas and cute and consideration. He was just not going there, even if it was nice for a change to have someone focused so intently on what he wanted. “Okay, fine, here's one of them; you tell me what you like too, got it? None of that one-sided crap.”

Cas nodded solemnly, and then he cocked his head in that way of his and gave a tiny, almost non-existent smile. “I liked what you were doing before. With your tongue.”

“Great, works for me, too,” Dean said roughly, because damn it, hearing Cas say something like that was doing funny things to his head. He sealed their lips together before he could say anything ridiculous.

At some point, Dean managed to straighten Cas out enough for them to lie back on the mattress. It was beginning to amaze him how little urgency there was to this. He couldn't remember the last time he'd stretched out close to someone and just kissed. Had he ever?

And then, as though responding to Dean's thoughts, Castiel's hands began to wander down over his chest in an experimental manner, and suddenly there was urgency. All kinds of urgency, and Dean couldn't get his hands on Cas fast enough. He noted with surprising interest the flat expanse of Castiel's chest, the hard clench of muscle in his stomach, the strength in his arms. All smooth planes and hardness where he was used to soft curves and... well, just soft.

Cas surged against him, hooking a leg over Dean's and starting to fall back before he let out a muffled cry against Dean's lips and suddenly jerked away. Dean sat up, thinking at first he'd aggravated some unhealed wound, only to discover that Cas had tried to roll onto his back, and therefore onto his newly-manifest wings.

“Nice going,” Dean chuckled, though he reached up and soothed a hand through the offended feathers, grinning when he felt Cas shudder against him. “Here, sit up.”

The two levered themselves up onto their knees, and as soon as they were steady Cas attacked Dean's coat and shirt with an eagerness that surprised him, considering Castiel's virgin status. Then again, Cas didn't have a human's emotional hangups, or at least not most of them, and he was Cas. Once he decided to do something, he didn't hold back one little bit.

“Whoa, Cas, slow down,” Dean murmured a moment later. His coat and shirt were on the floor somewhere, and Castiel was working at at the fly of Dean's jeans as though the presence of the clothing offended him. At some point the angel's own pants had mysteriously disappeared. “I'm not going anywhere.”

“I know,” Cas snapped, and Dean's eyebrows reached for his hairline, not because the angel was suddenly being bitchy, but because he didn't think that was supposed to be a turn on. “I just... Dean, I just... it feels...” the angel trailed away in frustration, unable to find the right word.

Dean chuckled. It might have been a long time ago (a long time ago, Dean had started early), but he still remembered what it felt like the first time. Too much sensation, too fast, and the desperation to feel it all at once was overwhelming.

“Cas, really, calm down.” Dean still shifted back on his hands and straightened his legs so that Cas could yank his jeans down and off. Dean had never been so glad he'd chosen to go commando.

Once Dean's jeans had been tossed unceremoniously across the room, Cas just stopped. Stopped and stared, his eyes roving across Dean's exposed body with such focus that Dean had to fight back the urge to squirm under the unexpected attention. He was still only half-hard, his body having not quite caught up to his mind, but when Castiel reached out and ran the tip of a single finger down the length of his cock, his touch light and his eyes reverent, Dean's body decided it was definitely getting with the program. He was rock hard and raring to go in seconds, and when he was overcome with the urge to let his eyes rove over the angel's nude form, he didn't fight it.

It wasn't the first dick Dean had ever seen that wasn't his own (hell, he and Sam had been living out of each others' pockets for years), but it was the first time in this context, and Dean was surprised when his reaction wasn't nervousness or uncertainty. Instead, his fingers twitched with the unexpected need to touch, and he just went with it. He shifted closer and lifted a hand, running one finger down Castiel's length in an echo of the angel's earlier motion. A shiver rippled visibly across Cas's skin, and Dean couldn't help a grin at that reaction.

“You like that?” Dean asked teasingly as he sat up, curling his hand more firmly around Castiel's hardness. The angel nodded, eyes fluttering closed, tongue flicking across his lips as he thrust once into Dean's hand. Leaning closer, Dean slid his tongue across the angel's bottom lip at the same time he rubbed his thumb across the head of Cas's cock. Hands flew to Dean's shoulders and gripped hard, fingers digging into muscle with inhuman strength, reminding Dean that here with him now was a celestial being, wrapped in the flesh of a human male. Castiel was not of this world.

Considering his job description, Dean was pretty certain that thought shouldn't have aroused him as much as it did.

“Dean.” God, Cas had to stop saying his name like that. Dean felt like he might fly apart just hearing it. “Dean, I need something.”

Dean had an idea, and he wasn't sure how he felt about it, only his body wasn't listening. One hand reached around behind Cas, who was holding himself up on his knees in front of Dean so he could explore the hunter's shoulder with his tongue. Dean paused a moment, his eyes fluttering closed because damn Cas caught on quick! Then he was on the move again, fingers fluttering over the round curve of Cas's left cheek before, slowly, moving inwards.

When Dean's fingers brushed lightly over Cas's entrance, the angel let out a startled gasp and arched backwards, his eyes rolling into his head as he ground back against Dean's hand.

“That... ah... what you needed?” Dean asked awkwardly, and then he chuckled at himself for sounding like an inexperienced teenager.

Castiel straightened out before meeting Dean's eyes in that eerily unblinking way of his. “Yes, I believe so,” he said with infuriating smoothness.

That was it. Dean made a pact with himself to have Cas completely undone and unable to string two sentences together by the end of the night.

Still somewhat uncertain, but determined to make Cas come apart, he circled a finger around the tight, puckered muscle. Castiel's eyes fluttered closed, lips parting to release a tiny gasp. His head fell back, and Dean took advantage of the position by licking a stripe across Castiel's exposed throat. The angel let out a sound that could only be described as a whine, and he did it again when Dean bit him lightly where his shoulder and neck joined. Dean began to suspect that was one of Cas's special places.

“Dean, do we need something for this?” Cas asked suddenly. His tone was more breathless than it had been before, but his sentences were still infuriatingly clear.

“Yeah. Yeah, hang on.” Reluctantly, Dean let go of his angel and crawled across the mattress to his duffel. There was a tube in there somewhere, something he kept for himself on the rare nights he wasn't able to find anyone that wanted to take him back to their place. Or to their car. Or his. Or hell, just right out into the alleyway.

The image struck him fast and hard; Cas pinned back against some dark alley wall, trench coat still in place, shirt undone and pants around his ankles. Clothing began to fly across the room as Dean searched frantically for that tube, and he decided right then and there that, at some point, that was definitely going to happen.

He didn't let himself think about the fact that he'd just decided this wasn't a one-time thing. If he thought about it, he was going to talk himself out of it, and he knew he wanted it more than that.

Finally, his fingers closed around the half empty tube, lying discarded at the bottom of the bag. Dean yanked it out triumphantly, and as he held it up he threw Cas a grin he'd specially designed to be caught somewhere between smoldering and mischievous. It usually made women melt. Castiel merely raised an eyebrow, although the corners of his lips twitched, and Dean found himself stupidly turned on by the tiny reaction.

Dean resettled himself in front of Cas, his eyes flickering between the angel and the lube. He'd never used it for a purpose like this before, but he didn't want Cas to see he was nervous, so he maintained his grin and nodded towards the mattress. “Lie on your stomach,” he instructed. “Don't want you smashing up your wings again.”

Despite how seemingly calm and collected he'd been up until now, Castiel fairly scrambled to get into place, and watching an angel trip all over himself had to be one of the funniest things Dean had ever seen. He couldn't help the warm chuckle that bubbled up from his chest, and when Castiel twisted his head over his shoulder to see Dean he was smiling that tiny smile of his, only it held more amusement than usual.

The cap snapped loudly when Dean popped it open, and he squirted what he thought was probably too much onto his fingers. The slick gel was cool, so Dean rubbed it between his fingers a bit until he felt it warm up. Cas was still watching him, his eyes narrow slits and his breathing growing heavy. The look sent a bolt of arousal sizzling down Dean's spine, strong enough that he was able to ignore the part of himself still uncertain about this whole act. He slid his fingers between Cas's cheeks, back to that little hole he swore would be too tight. He circled it several times, spreading the lube around and making Castiel pant and grind back against his fingers.

“Dean.” There it was again, that hoarse voice broken and heated around his name, and without any further hesitation Dean pushed his index finger inside.

It was tight, and hot, hotter than Dean had expected. Cas gasped, his hands clenching into the sheet in a way that Dean took as a good sign, so he pressed in further, searching for that place he'd heard others talk about but had never explored himself. The tip of his finger brushed against a little nub, and he guessed he'd found it because Castiel cried out and arched back, slamming into Dean's hand with such force that the tip of a second finger slipped inside.

“Do that again,” Cas demanded, grinding down hard onto Dean's hand.

Since it was already there, Dean let his second finger slide in along the first, and he found that spot again. He teased it continually for a moment, watching Castiel writhe beneath his fingers, before he carefully added a third finger. The angel barely seemed to notice the new intruder.

“I like that very much!” Cas growled suddenly, and Dean almost chuckled when he remembered making Cas promise to tell him what he liked.

“Good,” Dean replied gruffly. “I'm kinda likin' it, myself. Doesn't hurt?”

“A little,” Castiel answered, too easily. “It... burns. But it feels better than it hurts, and the pain is fading very quickly.”

Damn angel was still talking too clearly. Dean attacked that spot again, almost viciously this time, watching as Cas writhed and moaned beneath his fingers, the sheet bunching in his desperately clinging hands, his face twisted into an expression that could have been very easily mistaken for agony in its intensity. The sight sent twists of adrenaline and lust straight to Dean's cock. He pulled his fingers out almost reluctantly, grinning when Castiel let out a desperate cry and pushed back, trying to find them again.

“Hang on,” Dean said roughly, reaching down to pick up the tube again.

“Hurry,” Cas growled, and Dean shivered in response. He had a feeling he could get used to bossy Cas, at least when it came to this particular activity.

Once again Dean found himself using probably a little too much lube, but he figured too much was better than too little, anyway. He slicked it over himself carefully, almost afraid he'd come before he could get inside. Cas twisted his head over his shoulder, his eyes narrowed in a glare that had previously meant he was fighting the urge to smite the hell out of Dean. This version was too mild and lust-crazed to be anything more than a complete turn-on, and it definitely made Dean move faster. He stretched himself out over Cas, and carefully pressed just the head of his cock inside.

It was just as hot and tight as it had been around his fingers, tighter even, and Dean let out a low groan at the sensation. He tried to go slow, let Cas adjust because no way had just his fingers been enough to prepare him for this, but the angel wasn't having it. He lunged back against Dean, slamming the length of Dean's cock inside himself all at once.

“Jesus, Cas!” Dean groaned, as his body and brain argued over whether to feel concern for Cas, or just overloaded on how awesome this felt. He expected Castiel to tell him off for blaspheming, but all the angel did was let out a contented sigh and rock back against him. “Dean,” he rumbled happily, wriggling, impaled.

Dean put his hands on Castiel's hips in an attempt to gain some leverage, but then his eyes wandered to the fully healed wings. He raised his hands and placed them against the wing-bones instead, and when he gripped them tightly Cas let out a low moan, the vibrations of that sound carrying through his body and up Dean's cock. His wings flexed beneath Dean's hands, demanding more attention, and Dean couldn't help a somewhat hysterical grin as he began to stroke his hands along the tight muscles covering the bones.

“Dean,” Castiel growled, “do not toy with me.” He punctuated toy with a particularly vicious clench of certain muscles that whipped a gasp, then a laugh, out of Dean's lungs.

“Okay, Cas,” Dean's voice was strung out and even more hoarse than usual, but he'd just remembered his promise to tell Cas what he liked, too, so he kept going. “I like that.”

“What?” Cas panted, voice tinted with confusion.

“You being all bossy and demanding,” Dean chuckled. He thrust in hard, grinning again when Cas cried out as he hit the sweet spot.

“I...” Castiel gripped the sheet and pushed himself back hard just as Dean lunged in. They moaned almost in unison. “Can do that,” he finished breathlessly.

The angel shifted suddenly, bending his knees up slightly while one arm disappeared beneath himself. Dean watched his shoulder flexing for a moment, letting the knowledge that Cas was stroking himself shiver through him, but then suddenly he wanted to be the one doing that. He let go of one wing and batted Cas's arm away before curling his hand around the hard length. He kept his grip light at first, watching Cas squirm as he tried to thrust into Dean's hand for a firmer grasp, and then slowly tightened his fingers, twisting and flicking his thumb over the head experimentally, watching Cas's reactions to see what made him tick. With his other hand he continued to stroke the feathers of one wing, liking the soft feel beneath his hand just as much as the shivers the attention sent shaking through Cas's body.

He was pounding ruthlessly into the angel now, Cas shoving back to meet every thrust. The rhythm was downright brutal and they were both lost in the sensation, sharp cries leaving their lungs as their bodies joined in the roughest, most wonderful way. Dean felt his orgasm beginning, a thick, sweet sensation bubbling through his limbs, right down to the soles of his feet. It built slowly, piling upon itself, leaving him teetering right on the edge for so long that Dean felt torn between wanting to stay there forever, and just wanting to throw himself off. His thrusts became erratic, his hand around Cas's cock jerked without rhythm. The fingers in Cas's feathers clenched down tight, and the angel suddenly threw back his head and let out a keening wail. Hot come pulsed over Dean's hand, and Dean shook with the knowledge that he'd just given an angel his first orgasm. It was more than enough to push him right over the edge. Just a few more short shoves and Dean buried himself completely inside Castiel, warmth flooding around him. He was shivering as the burn of his climax rocketed through his body, so intense he couldn't even make a sound.

He slumped forward, pressing his forehead between Castiel's wings for a moment before carefully sliding out and to the side. “Damn,” Dean panted. “That was... damn.”

“Yes,” Castiel agreed. He rolled up onto his knees, and Dean watched with lazy fascination as he stretched his wings. And then blinked with a much stronger fascination when he noticed that the angel was already hard again.

“That was fast,” Dean chuckled, gesturing towards Castiel's groin.

The angel looked down at himself. “Was it?”

“Yeah, people don't usually recover that fast unless they're in their teens.” Dean chuckled again, remembering a time when he was eighteen and he'd jumped headlong into his first threesome. He'd managed to recover so many times that night it still made his head spin thinking about it.

Cas cocked his head in that way Dean was starting to suspect no one else on the planet could mimic, and then he reached down and grabbed Dean's wrist, hauling him easily up onto his knees. He left his hand there a moment, his eyes just raking up and down Dean's body, and then he let that hand fall from Dean's arm to his soft dick. Dean shuddered, still somewhat oversensitive, but he let Cas trail his fingers across it, shuddering again and harder when he realized he was starting to react. Huh. Apparently he still had it in him.

“Dean...” Cas stroked Dean's half-hard cock once, his blue gaze wide and fascinated, and then he suddenly shifted around until he was behind Dean. He slipped an arm around Dean's waist and stroked him again, lightly enough that it wasn't too much, and Dean leaned back against Cas and let himself just enjoy the attention.

“Dean.” The hunter felt Castiel move, and then the lube was being held up in front of him. “Would you allow me?”

Dean's first reaction was dread. Being the one to take Cas had been a little bit nerve-wracking, but the thought of Cas taking him? Dean swallowed hard, his eyes locked on the tube as images of Cas's fingers there rolled through his mind. A small part of him stirred in curiosity, and another part whispered that Castiel was new at this, of course he'd want to try it, and it certainly wasn't going to kill him...

“Yeah, okay,” Dean blurted before he could change his mind.

He heard Castiel's sudden, sharp intake of breath, felt an open-mouthed kiss pressed almost reverently to his shoulder, and realized that Cas had fully expected him to say no. The tube disappeared from his line of sight, and he heard the cap pop open as Castiel pressed another kiss against his skin, this time just below his ear.

“Dean,” Cas murmured behind him, his voice positively shattered, and god, Dean didn't know if he could do this. Being the one on top, the one in control, had been pretty great after he'd gotten over his nerves -- awesome, actually – but this? This was so far out of his comfort zone he couldn't even see safety anymore.

“Cas...” Dean started, but then Castiel's fingers were there, slick and curious and not nearly as hesitant as someone with so little experience should have been. Dean tensed, but the angel didn't try to push inside. Instead he simply circled, slow and deliberate, and Dean frowned to himself as he realized it didn't feel all that bad.

Castiel's nose nuzzled at his shoulder. “Let me show you, Dean,” Cas murmured. “Let me show you how good you made me feel.”

Well, damn, how was he supposed to say no to that? Reaching back to grasp Castiel's arms to support himself, Dean forced his body to relax. Cas would stop if he hated it, he reassured himself firmly. Cas would...

A single finger slid inside, so smoothly that Dean barely had time to think holy shit before it was buried fully inside him. He'd expected it to hurt, but with just the single digit it just felt... strange. He shifted back experimentally at the same moment Cas twisted his finger to press against Dean's prostate, and yeah, okay, that didn't feel too bad at all.

“Shit!” Dean's fingers clamped down on Cas's arm in what he was sure would have been a bruising grip if the angel were human. “No wonder you liked that so much!”

Castiel released a quiet, huffing chuckle, and nuzzled the hunter's shoulder again. When he withdrew that blessed finger, Dean actually found himself letting out a grunt of displeasure, only to replace it with a hiss when two digits slid in instead. It was a little more uncomfortable this time, but still not as much as he'd expected, and as soon as Castiel began to press against that sweet spot again he forgot about the discomfort completely, rocking back to try and capture as much of that lancing pleasure as he could.

When two fingers became three it started to burn, and Dean began to feel nervous again. If three fingers were causing pain, what would it feel like when Cas's cock tried to enter?

“Cas...” Dean started uncertainly.

“Sh.” Castiel pressed another wet kiss to Dean's shoulder. “Relax, Dean.” His voice, though steadier than it had been before, still sounded wrecked, and for fuck's sake, how was Dean supposed to argue with him when he sounded like that?

Taking a deep breath, Dean made himself relax as he exhaled, and discovered that some of the discomfort faded as he did so. He called up the image of Cas, expression twisted in on itself as he shuddered with the pleasure of having Dean inside him. That was where this was going, Dean reminded himself, and Cas really had seemed to enjoy it immensely, so the discomfort was bound to fade.

Dean's hands and arms were shaking with the effort of holding himself up by the time Castiel finally withdrew his fingers. Dean let out a low groan at the sudden, empty sensation, and realized at some point it had stopped being uncomfortable. He wanted that sensation back, he realized with shock, and he used his grip on Castiel's arm to try and yank his hand forward.

“Hold on,” Cas murmured, then, “Dean, you're shaking.”

“Yeah, bit of an awkward position you have me in, Cas.” Dean tried to make it sound light, but it came out so strangled and desperate that, had he been any less aroused, he might have been embarrassed.

Dean could feel the angel frown against his skin. There was a soft rustle, and the next thing Dean new he was being framed on either side by the now fully healed wings. For a second he wondered what Cas was doing, and then he realized it was an offer of support. Releasing the angel's arms, Dean laid his arms along the wing-bones on either side of him and gripped, fingers curling into the ridiculously soft feathers with a sigh of relief.

“Doesn't hurt you?” Dean asked, squeezing the feathers beneath his fingers to indicate both his grip and the seemingly awkward angle the angel had forced his wings into.

“No,” Cas rumbled against his shoulder.

Dean was about to say something, good, okay, he wasn't sure, he only knew one minute his mouth was open to speak and the next a gasp was escaping it as Castiel slid the slick head of his cock inside him without any warning whatsoever.

It burned, that was for sure, and it burned more as Castiel carefully pushed further in. Dean forced his lower body to relax as his fingers took a death grip on the holy-hell-these-are-powerful wings beneath his hands. Castiel's arms wrapped around his chest, helping to steady him or just holding on for his own support, and his face pressed into Dean's throat as a soft moan escaped his own. He didn't let up until he was fully buried inside; only then did he stop, his body shaking and his breaths coming in short pants, to let Dean adjust.

It took a moment, just like it had when it had been Cas's fingers, but slowly Dean began to get used to the sensation, and when it went from uncomfortable to odd to more than okay Dean pushed back against the angel's firm hips, grinding the tip of Cas's cock deep within him. The action pulled another moan from Castiel, and Dean couldn't help a strained grin because he was never going to get tired of those sounds.

Taking an even firmer grip on Cas's wings, Dean used the leverage to lift himself up until only the head of Cas's cock was still inside him before sliding back down again. Cas flung his head back, canting his entire lower body forward and Dean discovered that yeah, okay, that felt pretty fucking awesome. He did it again, harder this time, and groaned when the head nudged his prostate. He went to do it a third time, only before he could Castiel was shifting his wings, lifting Dean as easily as though he weighed nothing at all before letting him fall. Dean let out a shudder that was both pleasure and awe at how easily Castiel moved him.

The angel shifted again, pressing himself closer to Dean's back and laying his cheek against the hunter's as he lifted him. “Is this okay?” He asked roughly.

“Yup!” Dean was rather pleased with how light his voice sounded. When Cas lowered him Dean tried rolling his hips, because what the hell, this whole thing was one giant new experience anyway, and he chuckled low around a groan that Castiel mirrored. “Weird, but really okay.”

They kept up that rhythm, Cas's wings doing most of the work, Dean experimenting with different ways to roll his hips that made Castiel gasp or moan outright, until suddenly it wasn't enough. Not fast enough, not hard enough, just not enough, and Dean didn't know if Cas read his mind or his body language or what, but suddenly he found himself face down on the mattress, Castiel's wings and arms framing his body as the angel began to pound into him almost frantically. Dean arched back against him, hands alternatively squeezing and stroking over the bits of wing he could reach. He felt hands on his back, stroking downwards in almost a massaging motion, and that was when Dean realized Cas was holding himself up with his wings.

This orgasm hit him like a punch to the gut. The hunter buried his face in one wing and just screamed into it, riding out the spiking waves that were so intense he thought for a second that they might kill him. The feathers against his cheeks shook, the hands at his back clenched down into muscle, and then Cas was letting out a hoarse cry as he followed Dean over the edge. Wet warmth flooded Dean's insides, but he was too blissed out to find the new sensation strange.

Dean was still panting heavily into black feathers when Cas came crashing down on top of him, breathing just as hard. A nose nuzzled into the back of Dean's neck, and the angel let out a quiet, contented hum that Dean could feel vibrating through his back.

“How ya doin' back there, Cas?” Dean panted.

An eloquent, “Hmmm,” was his answer, and if he hadn't been trapped against the mattress Dean would have punched the air in triumph. He, Dean Winchester, had made an angel come so undone he couldn't even form a single word. Score!

For a few minutes the two just lay like that, catching their breath, until Dean started to get sweaty and nudged Cas so he'd budge up. The angel rolled off, careful to avoid landing on his wings, and got slowly to his feet as Dean hauled himself around on to his back. Castiel stretched languidly, both arms and wings, and gazed down at his hunter with a half-lidded, lazy expression that Dean decided he needed to see more of. A lot more.

“Welcome to being physical,” Dean chuckled, rolling to sit on the other edge of the mattress, grabbing for his jeans.

Cas gave him that tiny smile. “I am beginning to see the appeal.” He ducked down to grab his pants, and then asked suddenly, “Dean, should we have used condoms?”

The hunter was so shocked that Castiel knew what a condom was that his immediate reaction was to burst out laughing. When the angel cocked his head quizzically at him, Dean choked back his laughter and shrugged. “Well, you're an angel, so... I kinda figured we didn't need them.”

“Hm. Normally that would be true, but next time perhaps we should, to be safe. I do appear to be fully physical now.” He looked down at his body with an unreadable expression. “It might be possible for me to catch something.”

Dean nodded absently. He was fully dressed and watching Cas bend down to grab his shirt (and enjoying a view he hadn't even noticed before) when Cas's comment triggered a thought: where the hell had Jimmy been through all of that?

When he asked, Castiel looked like someone had just run over his puppy. He pulled the shirt on (which was not only fixed, but had somehow developed slits for Cas's wings) and began to slowly, awkwardly, do up the buttons, his expression so downcast that Dean found himself reaching out to touch the angel's shoulder. “Jimmy was ripped from this body by the arch-demon,” Castiel said slowly. “I... am now its sole possessor. My grace... has filled it the way a human soul would.” His eyes slid from the wayward buttons to meet Dean's, widening as they went. “It is completely mine,” he said, and the novelty of that fact echoed from every word.

Dean breathed a sigh of relief. “Okay. I'm just glad I didn't do something against the guy's will, or whatever.” He scratched his head. “Though I guess you would have told me if he had an issue with it, anyway.”

The angel paused, cocking his head in that curious-bird way of his, blue eyes fixed on Dean's face with something caught between sadness and flickers of renewed lust. Dean felt something stirring in response; if Cas was always this eager, his sex life was going to be even more active than usual. Dean couldn't help grinning to himself. He sure as hell wouldn't complain!

Of course, the angel had to go and burst that bubble. “Dean, I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation,” Castiel said somberly. “An angel has never been in possession of their own body before. Only fallen angels had their own bodies, and they were at that point human. I have no way of knowing what this means, if I will be able to return to my former self, or if...” Cas sighed suddenly, not a heavy sigh but more the forcible expulsion of breath that came right before panic sets in. “I don't know what's going to happen to me. I'm not even sure what I am right now.”

Slowly, Castiel reached out and gripped the front of Dean's shirt with one hand. Dean waited, somehow expecting more from the angel so new to emotion, but he just held on, and the hunter could handle that. It wasn't clingy, really, just... grounding, and it didn't make Dean feel overwhelmed.

“You okay?” he asked after a moment.

“No.” The word was accompanied with a quick, wry smile, because he knew Dean would worry. “I will be.” The angel frowned suddenly, and his wings outstretched. Dean watched with well concealed awe; the wingspan had to be a good eight feet on each side, if not more. “Though I wish I knew why these are still here.”

“Maybe... because you're physical now?” Dean ventured. “You said angels have never had their own bodies – maybe this is part of the result.”

“I don't know.” Cas extended them upwards til they brushed the ceiling, watching as flaking paint rained down with what at first glance appeared to be an impassive expression, until Dean looked closer and saw that he was actually fascinated. “I do know I like it when you touch them.”

Dean was opening his mouth to say something dirty in response, but before he could the door opened and Sam was walking in, carrying something that smelled fantastic. “Hey guys. Cas, you okay now?”

Castiel smiled. It was still a small smile – Dean didn't think the angel was used to the expression, not yet -- but it was so sincere that it didn't really need to be any larger. “Yes, Sam, thank you. The grace in Dean, interacting with mine, allowed me to finally heal.”

Dean's heart rate suddenly picked up a notch as he wondered, would Cas blurt out what they had just done while Sam was gone?

Did he care?

Last year had been one giant disaster because Sam hadn't trusted him enough to tell him what he was doing. And yeah, okay, this was a... this was Cas, and not demon blood, but even so. If Dean tried to hide it from his brother, would the trust issues start all over again? Besides which, he didn't want Cas thinking Dean was ashamed of him because he wasn't, goddamn it, male vessel or no.

“Yeah, I've got awesome hands,” Dean quipped, keeping his tone light, as he strode forward to investigate Sam's bag. There were six Styrofoam containers inside, one of which Dean would guarantee had Sam's salad, and he knew the three smaller ones were pie. He couldn't help a quick smile; trust Sam to think of Cas as well, even though the angel didn't need to eat. “Had Cas all hot and bothered by the time I was done.”

Sam snorted, and it was clear by the easy reaction that he thought Dean was joking.

“Hot and bothered?” Cas asked curiously.

“Dean's just being crude,” Sam said, tossing a glare Dean's way. The older hunter responded with his best cheeky grin. “Hot and bothered's a term people use to describe someone who's really turned on -- you know, aroused.”

“Oh. Well, then Dean is correct.”

Sam dropped the bag. Dean, who had his hand inside to reach for the pie, barely caught a hold of one of the plastic handles in time to keep it from hitting the floor.

“Dude! You smash my pie and you're going out for more!”

Sam didn't even spare him another glare. He was staring at Cas with the widest eyes, an expression similar to his puppy-dog you-can-absolutely-trust-me stare, only with more shock. “Wait, you mean... you two actually...”

“Had sex,” Castiel confirmed easily, and Dean's ears were not red. Really, they weren't. It was just the steam from the bag making him hot.

Dean threw himself down on the floor and began pulling containers from the sack. He was quite proud of himself when Sam turned that stare on him and he didn't so much as twitch his eyes in Sam's direction. “What'd you get Cas?”

“Dean.”

The hunter found Sam's salad and set it aside. The next container was full of bacon cheeseburger with steak fries (and extra onions, because no matter how much Sam complained he still loved his brother enough to put up with the smell) and the next one had a burger and a small salad, probably Sam's way of trying to appease Dean while still attempting to seduce Castiel towards vegetables. “Really, man? Cas doesn't even need to be healthy.”

“Dean!” The edge of panic in Sam's tone finally got him to look up, though he did so with a perfectly innocent expression on his face. Sam gestured wildly towards Castiel, whose head was cocked again, though Dean thought he might have looked just a little amused. “Aren't you the biggest womanizer on the planet? How did this happen?”

Dean shrugged. He popped open one of the smaller containers, and he couldn't help a small shiver when the smell of fresh cherry pie wafted up to his nose. “Mmm. I dunno, it just did. Will you quit being such a girl about it?”

Castiel suddenly strode across the room and lowered himself down beside Dean. His eyes were locked with unusual intensity on the pie. Dean curled protectively over his container while shoving another one of them towards the angel. “Get your own. This one's mine.”

“I... Dean, I appear to be hungry,” Castiel said, with no small amount of concern

“Really?” Shrugging, Dean reached out and shoved the burger and salad closer to Castiel. “Here.”

“Is that a bad thing?” Sam asked, temporarily forgetting his shock in favor of concern.

“Possibly,” Castiel replied as he hesitantly picked up his burger. He studied it with cautious eyes, as though certain it would bite him rather than the other way around. “Jimmy's soul was ripped from this body by the arch-demon, and it is now mine. Since no angel has ever possessed a body, I have no way of knowing what will happen.”

Cas took a bite of the burger. Dean watched eagerly, hoping Castiel would give that tiny smile of his and say he liked it, just to spite Sam. Instead, Cas frowned and looked at the burger again. He set it down in the container, and then pulled off the top and removed a piece of the bacon.

“What are you doing?” Dean yelped. Cas was destroying perfectly good food!

The angel held up the piece of bacon before taking a bite out of it. He did smile this time, even went so far as to close his eyes for a moment before opening them again to meet Dean's scandalized gaze. “I like this meat. The other kind is... unsatisfactory. Do you want it?”

Sam's massive frame suddenly crashed down in front of them. He looked between the two, his gaze a jumbled mixture of confused, stunned, and hysterically amused. Apparently amusement won out, because Sam started to snort with laughter. Dean picked up Cas's discarded burger bun and threw it at Sam's head, but the younger hunter only ducked and continued laughing. Cas cracked open the side salad, staring dubiously at its contents.

“I don't know how I missed it,” Sam chuckled. He picked up his own salad and stabbed at it blindly, gaze still twitching back and forth between the two.

“Missed what?” Dean growled, ready to launch the other half of the burger at his brother.

“You two,” Sam said with a shrug. His laughter had finally died down, but the grin on his face refused to budge. “You work, and I just didn't notice. So... congrats, I guess.”

“Shut up!” Dean muttered, although secretly he was pleased.

“You do realize,” Sam continued around a mouthful of lettuce. “That this gives me so many new ways to torture you?”

“Bitch,” Dean shot back automatically, and damn did it feel good to throw that insult at his little brother again. To play the game again, abandoned so long that he couldn't remember the last time they'd been at ease with each other enough to play it.

“Jerk,” Sam replied easily. Their grins flashed simultaneously, only to break into laughter when Cas huffed over his salad and blew a tiny piece of lettuce straight up into his hair. Which, by the way, was still tousled from what Dean considered some pretty mind-blowing sex.

Not bad for what started out to be a pretty shitty day.

...*...

No Reaper had come for him. Of course not, that demon bitch probably cast some kind of spell to ward them off.

Jimmy didn't even want to know when he'd started swearing. He wanted to blame the angels -- though not Castiel, as far as Jimmy was concerned he was the only angel that didn't deserve every ounce of negativity Jimmy could throw together -- but in reality it was just the fact that he'd slipped up, lost faith, lost control.

The worst of it was, he no longer cared. His priorities had shifted so drastically from the day Castiel had come to him. He didn't mind that the angel had his body now. In fact, he was glad. If any of the angels deserved to live, to experience being physical, it was Castiel. Not to mention that he'd looked so happy being with Dean.

Jimmy sighed. Now there was just the issue of the younger Winchester -- and if there was no promise of an afterlife anytime soon, he might as well spend some of eternity doing something about it.

...*...

END

~To be continued in Meddlesome Soul~
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