Entry tags:

fic: spn

SPN Fic: Never Travelled (Dean/Castiel, R)
Title: Never Travelled
Author: dotfic
Rating: slash, Dean/Castiel, hard R
Spoilers: for 4x10
W/C: 1,900
Disclaimer: No, they don't belong to me. I'm doing what I like with them anyway.

a/n: Many thanks to smilla02 for the beta-reading and enabling encouragement, and for helping me with the title (from ee cummings). Set at some point after 4x10.




"What?" Dean says, because Castiel's stopped talking, his head tilted. Dean's used to Castiel's focused stare, but not like this, not the way Castiel swallows, his eyes darkening with what looks a lot like want, like need.

He shouldn't be doing this, isn't even sure he wants to until he allows it, when his muscles tense but he doesn't pull away as Castiel leans in to kiss him, tentative, lips brushing his. Dean's hands clench around the back of the chair in Bobby's kitchen. Maybe Dean's dreaming again, but it doesn't feel like it.

Castiel's mouth tastes human, with the lingering traces of coffee, which is surprising. He's not sure what he thought Castiel would taste like. Humanity drapes over him like that trenchcoat, palpable and solid but thin over a sense of the uncanny, everything that Dean has spent his life battling against.

Shit, he feels human enough, the skin warm.

Sam and Bobby are upstairs, asleep -- they were both exhausted, having been up the whole previous night examining old texts like the geeks they are. Still, the back of Dean's neck itches, like someone or something's watching, about to catch him doing things he shouldn't, definitely shouldn't, be doing.

He's good at this, he knows just exactly where to put his hands, how to tease with lips and tongue but right now it's all lost to him, and Dean can't figure out where his nose should go in relation to Castiel's. He keeps his hands around the back of the chair because he's sure he won't know what to do with them, can't remember kissing this clumsy since he was thirteen.

Pulling away, Castiel frowns at Dean in the darkness while the sink drips, hollow and steady. Castiel licks his lips thoughtfully, like someone who's just tried a flavor of ice cream for the first time.

Dean feels like he's waiting to be graded or some bullshit like that, judged and assessed and what does Castiel know about kissing anyway? Zero. Zip. Zilch. Dean feels a tickle of sweat across his forehead, not that he cares what the heavenly bastard thinks anyhow. The whole situation had gotten way too awkward and –

But then Castiel's mouth is covering his again, fast, harder this time, his tongue pushing in to slide against Dean's and he feels himself going hard. He shoves the chair aside with a scrape across linoleum before his hands find Castiel's hips, tug the shirt free to find warm skin.

As Dean pushes up against him, knocking Castiel into the counter, Castiel grips Dean's biceps and makes a low, surprised sound in his throat. He makes the sound again as Dean breaks the kiss to put his tongue against the pulse in Castiel's neck, human and real and alive.

---

Three weeks ago, they were standing in the cold pre-dawn outside a motel in Michigan. "So." Dean coughed as he curved his fingers around the paper cup full of hot coffee. "I, uh…" He took a sip, burning his tongue. "The holy tax accountant."

Castiel's head jerked up, like a hawk who's spotted a shiny object. He waited.

The words stuck thick in Dean's throat; for a second he heard screams, felt the flicker of heat and his stomach twisted. He wanted to know, he just wanted to fuckin' know. It was easier to carry the weight when you knew how much it was.

"Did I –" Dean took another swallow of the hot coffee, letting it burn the roof of his mouth. "Did I kill him? When I stabbed him—you—in the chest?"

"Yes," Castiel said flatly, his eyes off to the treeline, where a church steeple rose in the distance. He turned back to Dean, looked right in Dean's eyes, the stare making Dean's stomach twist again, but the longer Castiel stared, the more Dean saw no judgment there. "You stabbed him and you and your friend shot at him. They were rock salt rounds, so it only bruised. It was the knife that killed his body."

Dean inhaled coffee and the sharp chill of the day. He wanted to be on the road, driving fast with the windows open. Away.

---

He shouldn't do this but it feels damn good.

Castiel's tie is loosened, shirt open at the neck and his palms slide down over Dean's t-shirt, against muscle and skin through the thin layer of cotton. Dean licks along Castiel's jawline, the stubble rasping against his tongue, and feels a flash of triumph when the angel arches his head back, eyes closed.

"Will this get you kicked out of the super special secret club?" Dean murmurs, his mouth moving down to the hollow where Castiel's neck meets his shoulder, wondering if either of them will stop if it does. Castiel smells like sweat and coffee, and his clothes are a little too musty, as if he's bathed recently but hasn't yet grasped the concept of laundry day. But then Dean stops thinking about that as Castiel tugs Dean's t-shirt free, then slides his hands up beneath, palms hot and gentle over his skin.

"It doesn't work that way," Castiel says. His hands stop, hovering just over Dean's abdomen where Dean had once had a long, thin pale scar (an agropelter, when he was 17) until Castiel had removed it. "We don't –" Castiel's never looked this uncertain before. "We are told we don't feel this, it isn't our nature. Punishment for it doesn't exist."

Dean thinks he hears an unspoken yet at the end of that sentence. His hands move up, tugging at Castiel's tie until it hangs loose around his neck. "So this isn't happening, this never happened?" He leans in, kisses Castiel again, his hand cupping the back of his neck, and Castiel's fingers twist around the fabric of Dean's t-shirt.

This time it feels like second nature, their mouths fitting together as if they're supposed to go like that. He slides his tongue over the chapped roughness of Castiel's lower lip, makes a mental note to tell him about Chapstick.

Dean breaks the kiss, smirks through the feeling of edginess, because yeah, he could be in deep shit here with the man upstairs. "Isn't your boss, y'know, Mr. Omniscient?"

"I'm just one of many children. His eye is elsewhere." Cas doesn't seem to notice that his tie is undone. His hair is messy, sticking up at odd angles – he looks like the back end of an office Christmas party. Not that Dean knows what an office Christmas party looks like. "And we were told, when we were sent down, to live among humans, to live as humans, in plain sight."

---

"I told him the risks, Dean," Castiel said, shoving his hands in his pockets, hunching his shoulders. His breath rose visible in the air. "Before I entered him I told him I was taking him into a war. I told him his soul would go to heaven if he was killed."

"Sure, and that makes it all okey-dokey."

"He was a devout man. A willing soldier, a casualty in a battle he wanted to fight."

The cadence of Castiel's voice was soothing, and Dean wanted to believe it.

When Castiel put his hand on his shoulder, right over the place where he'd left the scar of his hand print, Dean startled, sloshing the coffee so drops fell, staining the dust on his boots dark. "I let his soul go," Castiel said. "He's at peace."

Dean looked away. When he turned back, Castiel was gone.

---

Castiel's fingers touch Dean's face, and Dean draws his head back, thinks of Anna; this touch is different than that, it's more exploratory than tender. "No more watching, because the stakes are very high, the war has started." Castiel's hands pause, his fingers cupping Dean's chin and the touch now has gone gentle. Dean doesn't quite know where to put himself. He doesn't have much time to wonder as Castiel's hands continue downward. They falter a moment, then cup Dean through his jeans, and Dean hisses through his teeth.

This definitely has to be a bad idea, if not now, then later. But hey, if his brother can fuck a demon, Dean can grope an angel. In fact he already did once, well, sort of. Anna was human, grew up as human, she wasn't this, whatever Castiel is.

So no big deal, right? Not like there's anything instrinsically wrong with how he's tugging down the zipper of those very corporate looking slacks. Cas wears boxers, pin-stripe boxers, and Dean almost laughs as he reaches in and pulls out Castiel's cock. He holds it in his fingers, strokes its length, watches the blue eyes lose their focus.

Yeah, Dean feels no guilt at all undoing an angel, the smug son of a bitch. Castiel comes with a shout he muffles against Dean's shoulder, spurting over Dean's hand. There's a faint sound, quieter than breathing, a stir of air. Dean blinks and the illusion of shadow outlining Castiel's shoulders is gone.

He feels Castiel trembling, fingers digging into Dean's skin, right where he left the scar on Dean's shoulder. His breathing is ragged.

"Hey, dude." Crap. What if there's some weird theological rule, and doing this is bad for grace-enabled angels or something?

Castiel draws in a deep breath that turns into what can't possibly be, but sounds like, a laugh. "That was—not what I expected."

He's not sure he's ever heard Castiel laugh before.

"Not what you expected? You mean you've never…you've been here almost four months, don't you ever clean the pipes?"

"Clean the pipes?"

"You know." Dean curls his fingers into an almost-fist, mimes the action.

"No." A crease forms between Castiel's eyes as he frowns, not disapproving, at least Dean doesn't think so. He just looks like he's trying to get all this worked out in his head in a way that makes sense to him. "When it happens I breathe deeply and wait until it goes away."

Dean's expression must show what he thinks of that idea, because Castiel's lips twitch. "Monks do it all the time, Dean."

Then he moves forward, his mouth covering Dean's, his hands reaching down to unzip his jeans, tugging at the waistband of his briefs. Maybe it's the traces of the personality of the human shell he wears, maybe it's Castiel himself, this sense of spareness and reserve and dry heat. Dean starts to feel a little light-headed as Castiel's fingers begin to stroke him, uncertainly at first, then more firmly. Dean closes his fingers over Castiel's, guiding him, murmurs yes, there, like that, even though he's still pretty sure he shouldn't be doing this, letting Cas do that.

He remembers the way the hilt of the knife felt in his palm as the blade dug into flesh. It's not as if Sam killed the body Ruby took. It's not as if this is all right, and Dean almost pushes Cas away, but instead, he holds on, needs to hold on, needs this.

With a slow, fluid movement, Castiel kneels in front of him, and Dean leans back against the sink, clenches his fingers around the edge of the counter. He looks down as Castiel takes him into his mouth, and thinks of the stories about Lucifer.

Lucifer, who refused to kneel before humanity.

Dean closes his eyes, and lets himself fall.

~end