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Dean Winchester was between hunts and happily holed up in his room at the bunker.The last Apocalypse had been averted thanks to sweetly timed and epically badass team play from the elite squad, including Castiel. He’d flown off — like he always did after a hunt — wouldn’t even hang around for a drink — but if Dean stayed quiet Castiel would return soon, with his same ol’ crinkle-faced confusion and the same dark’n’snarky humor he always handed out, when he bothered to even try to be funny.There were a few people in the bunker, but Sam was training folks they’d rescued from the ‘other side’ at the outdoor range down the county line a few miles and Mom and the ‘who knew but it was fine’ Bobby from the other side were probably off smooching someplace and Dean was bouncing between absurdly pleased and greenly jealous.So he looked at his entertainment options and said fuck it, deciding to let his inner teenager out; he lay face down on his bed reading an omnibus Batman comic his nerd brother had seen fit to steal for him for Christmas.He was chewing gum to prevent himself from eating a greasy snack while reading. Cas had taught him that. Castiel. He sometimes had trouble changing the name in his mind. On one thing the two angels - the living and the dead - were consistent; their loyalty to the Winchesters was unquestioned, and nobody tested him since he’d get 110% with extra credit every time.For everything else, it galled Dean to the centre point of his gall-bladder how much more loveable the old Cas was, but how much more useful and easy to talk to this Castiel was. Even though he was meaner, sometimes, than the old Cas. It pissed him off and it made him wish God or whoever would just give him a mulligan on the old one, especially when this Castiel rubbed his feet after a hunt and all he could think about was how much better it would feel if his Cas was doing it.And it was nice to have a seraph around for healing, although being told endlessly about your liver damage was not fun.
Castiel came into his room with the sound of flexing wings, big ones. Dean never tired of it, but he didn’t have time to smile, because he was used to a knock at his door, and also since Castiel’s face was wet with tears.They weren’t tears of blood, though, so not angelic.
What.the.hell.
“Castiel, what’s goin’ on?”“Winchester, I — I —“ and he staggered to sit at Dean’s desk. Dean slowly sat next to Castiel, on his bed.“Take a breath,” Dean advised.“My vessel — my vessel,” Castiel gasped. After a few shuddering breaths he seemed to master himself.Castiel said, “Your Jimmy from this Heaven wants to
control this vessel and speak to you.” He sat still, gasping a little.“Why the hell would he want to do that?” Dean said, genuinely surprised. “Why does he know or care about us? He got his, safe and sound!”“He did something for Naomi so he could keep an eye on Claire.”Dean’s eyes narrowed. “I bet, but why lose any time keeping watch on Claire by watching us instead? I don’t imagine Heaven just put in a magic window in his room, ‘hey, go spy on those guys’.”Castiel looked at the ground. He did that when he did not want to deal with what was coming next.Dean hadn’t survived a trying and violent life by being unable to think both tactically and strategically. And wasn’t the War Against Heaven over? or was this yet another stupid angel ploy to try to get intel? Fuck those chicken-winged incompetent meddlers, and he would have said so aloud, but that was just picking a fight with a hurting angel, not a good plan.“Hunh. So that was the deal. This place is salted against ghosts but souls tethered to Heaven might be able to get in here if they knew what they were dealing with. And it’s something Naomi wants, so I’m ready to call bullshit.” More casually, he said, “So, is he threatening you?”Castiel hadn’t looked up yet. He was either despairing or lying, and he’d entered weeping, but not blood, so who knew what the hell was going on. “I don’t know how to answer that.”“So, he is threatening you,” Dean confirmed. Castiel had mopped off his face and now he blew his nose.Dean gave the smallest breath of a laugh. “You’re getting right into the being human stuff. Next you’ll be sleeping instead of up all night reading.”“I have been sleeping. I was having a dream, or maybe a nightmare, and the next thing I knew Jimmy was in my head talking to me.”Dean’s alarm was stark. “Jesus, is he in there already? You were talking about it as if it hadn’t happened.”“Yes, Dean,” a voice said. It was Castiel’s voice box, operated by a much happier person, apparently, someone who didn’t sound like honey through gravel.“Can Castiel hear what you’re saying?” Dean asked after recovering. There was a nod. Jimmy’s expression was so much more open and mobile. It freaked Dean out, whenever he even thought about someone else in there, in Castiel’s body. In reality, it was far, far worse.“Can he hear me talking?” Another nod.“So, Jimmy, what’s up.” Dean’s expression gave nothing away.“When the new Castiel took the former Castiel’s place with the Winchesters” and here he lifted a hand to hold off Dean’s scoffing, and said, as a concession,“more or less, he also took over his familial duties to Claire. She asked him why and he said that she was free to reject any family claim but he was going to be interacting with her because they were both hunters. Then she told him not to be an idiot and they hugged.”“You were watching from Heaven.”“Heaven was watching, and I got to see. And by Heaven I mean Naomi. She’s got a thing for the new Castiel. She always hated the old one, a little bit, because he was so good at defying her but — he always found a way to help; made her look bad. I don’t like her but I sure respect her.”“What the hell are you doing wearing your body again?”“I’m not really, I’m just enough human soul floating on top of Castiel’s choppy grace to run this mouth, basically. I just wanted to tell you that whatever qualms you have about being affectionate with Castiel, please don’t have them on my account, or on Heaven’s account. I’m not speaking for Naomi.”Jimmy looked straight at Dean for the first time, and then he looked away. “Thing is, Castiel doesn’t want me to tell you that. He told he that it doesn’t matter what I say to you.”“That’s right, you goddamned nosy freak! Get the fuck out of my Castiel’s body! you don’t live here anymore.” He started to pronounce an exorcism and boom, Jimmy let go of the rope, and Castiel was back in control. Dean threw himself on him to prevent him from leaving before speaking, and the second he did that Castiel’s wings extended -BAM!- into the middle of the room and the wall over the desk and there was a second or two of carnage as he knocked over a lamp before he got his wings squared away.Castiel had never lost control of himself like this, ever, so Dean dug in, and got the barfy feeling that accompanied flight by etheric means, and then, woozy and freaked out and chilly, he was dumped out about 10 yards from the lip of the Grand Canyon.“Hoo boy!” Dean said. He fell back, and then stayed connected with a hand to the shoulder, not wanting to be left behind if Castiel got shifty again.“Sorry,” Castiel said. The wings, black as space with a metallic blue shine when the light caught them just so, were gone. The tears were gone. He seemed to be having no emotions at all. Or words, for that matter.“So what was all that about, and tell me no matter how stupid or embarrassing it is, I know what it’s like to be spied on from the inside out.” Dean rolled his eyes at the continued stone face, and got closer. “Spit it out.” He put his other hand on Castiel’s shoulder.Castiel wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Jimmy caught me having mildly sexual thoughts about you.”“Hope they were worth it, and everything came out okay,” Dean said before he could stop himself. He chuckled at his own coarseness.“He doesn’t really understand that our relationship is one of close and affectionate siblings,” Castiel said.“Ha-ha!” It was a very childish laugh, and Dean was almost laughing too hard for intelligibility. “He caught you jerking off while thinking about me,” Dean crowed, relieved as hell the conversation wasn’t going the other way.“No, but I see you are not offended.”Castiel was not amused by the smugness of his expression, and Dean didn’t care. “I’d be flattered, but your feelings are natural. I’m a Winchester boy, and between us we pretty much got the sexy times covered.”“Having your pick of sexual partners does not make you a good person.” Castiel sure sounded prim. He pulled away.“So what was it?”“What was what?” Castiel said.“You can’t wiggle out of this, it’s relevant; what were you fantasizing about?”Cas was practically growling now. “If you must know, I was thinking about kissing you.”Dean decided to react to this news by teasing Castiel. He tried to think of something really noxious.In a serious, concerned voice, he said, “What, not coming on my face?”“WINCHESTER.”Dean was trying very hard not to laugh at Castiel’s exasperation. “What, no goats, no giant dildos, no watersports?”“Winchester, for the love of all that’s—““No rimming? no face-fucking? no prostate play? Sheesh.”“WINCHESTER, please! I’m just barely able to comprehend the whole idea of sexual desire, it’s like you and Enochian, you know what it’s good for, but you don’t necessarily know anything about it in practical terms.”Dean looked around. There was a sign they could hide behind, for what he had in mind.“Let’s look at the view,” Dean said. He was going to do something stupid, even though Castiel had a point, as always, and they had a good thing going. He’d occasionally entertained fantasies about Castiel too, usually when he made the mistake of trying to jerk off when he was maybe a little too drunk for the job.Leaving it affectionate but non-sexual was manageable. The second Dean kissed him he’d be screwed, although maybe not literally. He now suspected that Castiel’s loyalty would take shape, if they ever got naked, as a rather spectacular form of sexual pliancy. It was easy to imagine he’d do anything Dean asked him to, such was his guilt over not being able to save his One True Dean over in the other universe. That made the ‘if’ of getting naked a damned big if, and damned scary if, and a damned compelling if.Dean pulled Castiel behind a sign warning people not to move any closer to the cliff. Castiel protested briefly, and figured out at the last possible second that Dean was serious about kissing him, and closed his eyes. “Mmm,” Castiel hummed after their lips touched. Dean pulled back.Castiel looked puzzled.Dean put their noses together and said quietly, “Not so great?”“Just, surprise. I’m breathing your breath,” Castiel said. “We’re breathing together.” He filled his lungs with a strange and ragged sound. Dean felt his heart clunk. “I don’t have any control over this feeling of wanting to be closer to you all the time.”“We can stop,” Dean said.There was a whump. They were back in the bunker, in Dean’s room. Dean let go of Castiel until the spins from etheric plane travel stopped, and then Castiel gently moved closer and took Dean’s face in his and looked at him from about six inches away.Dean felt like he was drowning in blue and then looked down at Castiel’s perfect mouth and started to imagine comparing another pink against that soft, soft mouth. Castiel muttered, before the gap between their mouths closed again, “I thought you’d enjoy more privacy.”“Warn me, would’ja?” Dean whispered back against his mouth. “Flying’s not my bag.” Then he concentrated on teasing Castiel’s mouth open, but he seemed to be stuck on attempting to inhale Dean while their faces were in close proximity and he kept his teeth firmly closed.After a few minutes, Castiel sighed deeply and pulled away. “I’m not doing this right,” he said sadly.“Really,” Dean said. “I’m not complaining.”“Your ability to deal with unpleasantness is unparalleled in human history,” Castiel said.“Kissing you isn’t unpleasant, it’s just not what I expected to be doing this morning!” Dean, trying to fly the conversation casual-like.“Why do you want us to touch tongues?” Castiel asked. “I must seem controlling or prudish to you.”Dean frowned. Then he crossed his eyes. Then he slapped his hands over his eyes, so that they were straight when he pulled his hands away.“You are a vast multidimensional being,” he intoned, “Who is jammed into a body which EXCUSE ME the Jimmy in this timeline HAS NO BUSINESS to be in, and thanks to our fine feathered fuck-nuts in Heaven, gallows’ed be their name, and this means YOU Naomi since you’re probably watching, you goddamned HAG, you, Castiel, are having to cope with human feelings and emotions when you would prefer not to!”“You usually don’t take this long to get to your point; I certainly can’t argue it, though,” Castiel said, and by this unwittingly saved himself the trouble of bandaging Dean’s hand after he tried to punch him hard in the face.Dean tried to stay on task. He was pretending he didn’t have an erection by standing utterly still. “We have to make a space they can’t spy into.”Castiel smiled. It was a slow smile, a knowing one. “You want to do it again?”It wouldn’t do to look too easy. “Not if Naomi is watching. Not if anybody is watching, to tell ya the truth.”“Touching our lips together felt very pleasant,” Castiel said.“You make it sound like a science experiment,” Dean complained.Castiel frowned. “It is a science experiment. I don’t know if it will feel pleasant, I don’t know how to interpret it, is this pleasure, is this boredom, does the way the vessel reacts and the way I react, as Castiel, do they match? Am I imagining things? And all that’s before I start worrying what you’re feeling,” he concluded gloomily.“You sound a lot like you want to go again at the kissing but need to be talked into it.”“I said kissing you was a science experiment, I don’t think I can walk that back,” Castiel said with sudden waspishness.Dean laughed and sat down on the bed. “‘Cept of course you can. Indefinitely. You could punch me in the face — uh, please don’t! — and fly off and I’d forgive you. And I’d still want to kiss you. But I’d also be okay if you told me that wasn’t going to happen again because my molecules taste funny.”“To know that for sure I’d have to put my tongue in your mouth,” Castiel said.Dean shrugged. “You’ve had your grace all up in my everywhere. Am I supposed to worry about some spit? Or is there something else about angel sex I should be freaking about?”“I can’t impregnate you with a nephilim, if that’s what you’re worried about.”“Huh! Jack’s all the nephilim I’ll ever need, and since I don’t have ovaries I wasn’t actually worried at all,” Dean said.Castiel took that comment apart, and blew Dean’s mind, before he made him see red. Again. “With sufficiently powerful magic, and presumably Rowena’s help, we could probably overcome that, but no, I don’t think I want to go to all that trouble when you’ll just drink too much and abandon the child.”Dean jumped up and said, “Take that back.”“What,” Castiel said, openly mocking, “You think you’d give up hunting to be a father? You’d find a surrogate.”“Jesus, I don’t know whether to slap you for saying that or me for being stupid enough to listen to you.” Dean made a loud and throaty scoffing noise. “To raise a nephilim? Don’t be a fucking asshole, of course if we hypothetically had a child I’d quit hunting, at least until the kid was all trained up.”“So, a weeks’ vacation then,” Castiel said.“So you’re voting that I punch you instead of kissing you?” Dean complained.“No,” Castiel said. “and I just don’t understand what you’re getting out of it.”“I dunno. You’re showing that you trust me. And you trust me enough to kiss me in front of a live studio audience FUCK YOU NAOMI! and — confidential to Jimmy Novak! — FUCK YOU TOO!”Castiel cocked his head and said, “Shh.” He rolled his eyes around as if listening hard for a voice. “Jimmy’s completely gone.”Castiel moved like lightning to other side of the room and started pawing at the mirror on the wall.“What,” Dean said. Castiel was staring at something little in his hand.“It’s a bug. I can’t believe it, an electronic bug, nothing magical or enchanted or — it’s just a bug.”“So they’ve been watching me jerk off for how long I wonder. Next time I lick my fingers, it’ll all be for you Naomi.”Castiel’s back stiffened. “I thought you mostly did it in the shower,” he said, screwing up his face almost, but not like, how Cas used to do it. What kind of man yells at his best friend, “You screw your face up wrong! Get it right, goddamn you,” — who knew? it wasn’t Dean.“No porn in the shower… no automatic cleanup on aisle three in bed.
It’s always something. Absolute best is jacking it outside, leaving my troubles behind so to speak.”“Naomi must be thrilled when you make it so easy for her,” Castiel remarked.“Fuck you, Castiel,” Dean said.After watching the bug disappear in a blast of enraged angel, he pulled on Castiel’s arm and forced a kiss on him. To his astonishment, Castiel opened his mouth and passed a little humming ball of grace onto Dean’s tongue.“Erngh,” Dean said, thinking that if he did something stupid, like swallow, he’d probably blow one of his kidneys out of his ass, or something equally untoward, as Castiel might put it. He could feel every hair on his body stand up, and it was about as sexy as a chest wound, thinking he had a fucking grace grenade in his mouth.He passed it back, not too fast, since he didn’t want to look like a complete rube and drop the son of a bitch, and Castiel said, “Don’t you like it?” His teeth lit up and Dean started chuckling, it was like Cas was carrying Chuck’s cosmic intent around in his mouth like a teeny weeny disco ball and then he laughed aloud, it was so ludicrous a thought.Castiel was glaring.“Your teeth lit up like a fucking Christmas display, Cas,” and then he sighed and said, “Castiel.”“I don’t mind.”“Well, I do,” Dean said. “But it helps that it doesn’t bother you.”“Can I start calling you Dean?”“Why don’t we just tell everyone we’re getting married?” Dean said, with glass-cut sarcasm. “Let’s leave the names as is, it’s easier for both of us if we’re real to each other, not standing in for who we knew first.”“You're right, I don’t know why we’d bother, we can fake ID for pretty much any occasion. But imagine the wedding gifts,” Castiel said, provokingly.“Fuck, Rowena would have to come up with something awesome,” Dean said. “It never occurred to me to play that angle. God, it’d be the hunter event of the decade.”“It would also put all the hunters in the same place at the same time,” Castiel said. “SOP would be in tatters on the ground.”“Free booze and everybody bringing us extra-sharp knives with wacky evil provenance? sounds like home!” Dean said. He was joking, and he wasn’t, like always. He’d argue it back and forth and about the time you thought you knew where he stood on anything, Castiel thought, he’d change the subject.“So with Jimmy gone how’s the sexy feeling?”“I want to lie down on the bed with our clothes on and hold you in my arms — but I must tell you I’ve no desire for sex. I hope you’re okay with that,” Castiel said. “I’m sorry I scared you with my grace.”Dean bristled. “I was concerned, not scared, and we dealt with it.”“I feel like we’d just traumatize each other if we actually did have sex. I’d do something stupid and angelic, and you’d —““Fart.”“A minor inconvenience.”“That really depends,” Dean assured him.“If I asked you, would you give me a list of approved sexual activities?”“Why do I have to do all the paperwork?” Dean quipped.“What do you want me to do?” Castiel said helplessly.“Castiel, I am a total fucking perv. I’ve either done it or thought about it. I trust you, I trust us. You will not abandon me. You will be angry or hurt but you won’t abandon me.”“No,” Castiel said. “Nor would you abandon me without fighting with all you had.”“You know it,” Dean said simply. “So, you’re the one with the sexual awakening happening. For all I know I’m not the one anything should be happening with.”Castiel’s expression said it all. It was Dean or nobody.He lay down on the bed and held his arms up. Dean, with a soldier’s discipline, convinced his traitorous body that he needed to sleep, so he lay down next to him and, trembling a little, put his head on Castiel’s chest. He fell asleep with Castiel gently caressing his hair.
They both woke up when Sam banged on the door wondering if Dean had plans for supper.Dean sat up, almost panicking, and then remembered that Sam had had months to get used to Winchester+Angel rev 2.0, and that everybody knew that Castiel was asexual. A cuddler and sometimes as affectionate as a kitten but not really a sexual creature.And now, Heaven, using Jimmy, had gotten into his body but because Jimmy was as stubborn as an angel, he’d used his vessel time to say he was team Winchester and had given him permission to bone, like it was any of his fucking business anyway. Christ, Naomi must be losing her fucking mind, and it looked good on her.... but.... being a hunter could be confusing as fuck sometimes.He got up, Castiel’s hand pulling at his gently as he moved away like something in a rom-com, and he gruffly said through the door, “There’s a pot roast marinating and veggies in a bag in the fridge. Give me a second and I’ll get it in the Instant Pot.”“I dunno, Dean, we got, like, a dozen people here for dinner.”Dean popped the door open, and Sam said, “Yeah, a few more people than I was expecting, but they’re all hunters.”“Fuck! are we the new Roadhouse or what?” Dean grumbled. “And why the hell am I cooking?”“Because you’ll complain if someone else does,” Castiel said, suddenly standing next to him. “I’ll come help find food for everyone else.” In the end, he flew into town for an immense block of cheese and a bag of macaroni, and greens, and under Dean’s supervision, he made mac'n'cheese and an immense salad in the biggest bowl they had. It seemed weird that there were vegetarian hunters now; a couple of people thanked Dean for making a non-meat entrée.It didn’t matter if they were killing things, cooking, sleeping, driving. Everything was better when they were together, Dean thought, shoulder to shoulder with his best friend in the whole world.
Sam, though. Sam had bat ears for this shit. All concerned, he pulled Dean aside after their big family-style hunter supper. Their guests washed the dishes and took over the TV room and the map table, and Dean was thinking of slipping off to his room again since he no longer had control over the remote, but Sam got to him first.“Dean, has something changed between you and Castiel?”“Like what?”“Like you know exactly what I mean. Castiel is …different.”“Vessel trouble.”“What?” Sam barked.“Yeah. Naomi and Jimmy pranked him and got him all confused. Also, we gotta take the fucking bunker apart for bugs, since those stinkin’ angels think spying on us is so fucking great.”“What? They bugged your room?” Sam’s eyes were wide and his expression pissed.Dean shrugged. “At the very least, but I bet they're everywhere. Hope they enjoyed my lotion choices.”Sam shuddered at the masturbation reference and said, “Were they hoping to spy on you and Castiel… like, making out or something?”“I think Naomi is an older-than-dirt schemer, and she’s been grooming Jimmy to take over Castiel’s body for her own purposes, and then Jimmy screwed everything up by ignoring his mission and telling me and Castiel to love each other and be happy.”Sam’s voice got noticeably louder and squeakier. “Dean, if angels other than Castiel are trying to break through into the bunker we have a serious problem.”“Castiel and I took care of our end,” Dean said, shrugging again. “And Jimmy stiffed Naomi on the deal, and there’s nothing she can do about it. Jimmy played her, just to be able to talk to us about our sex lives.”“And? Anything else I should be aware of?” Sam said sarcastically.Dean thought about the kissing. He thought about what Castiel would say.“We reaffirmed our profound bond by cuddling while Castiel stroked my hair,” Dean said sarcastically. He left the kiss/kisses, and the disco ball of grace, completely out of his report.“We had something to sort out, and we did,” he added. “We’re together, come what may, but we already knew that, right? Is there any dessert? or did Castiel forget pie - again.”“Dean, I’m serious.”Dean looked at his brother and his fond, loopy grin came out. “I tell you what. If you ever hear Castiel call me ‘Dean’, he’s either been vessel-jacked or we’ve —”He let the unsaid words hang in the air between them for a minute, and then howled with laughter at his brother’s expression. Castiel poked his head into the library.“Winchester!” he said.Now both of the brothers were laughing, but it was fine. Castiel smiled at them both; Dean would explain the joke later, after they found and destroyed Heaven’s little electronic spies.Castiel and Dean looked at each other. Dean, unseen by his brother, winked.
_FIN_