#deanvinity

Something is wrong. Castiel had known it as soon as he got home from his art history class and found Dean curled up with a Chuck Palahniuk. Dean only reads Palahniuk when he's sad about something, just like he only reads Vonnegut when he's worked up, his Marvel Comics collection when he's pleased, and Tolkien after a row with his father.

But he just smiled a hello at Castiel, asked after his day, proceeded to make dinner. Normal, normal, normal. Castiel waited for him to say something, to explain, but he never did.

When they went to bed, Dean clung to him tighter than usual, kissed him fiercer, fucked him harder. He avoided Castiel's eyes, breathed damply into the crook of his neck and gasped out his name, broken with desperation, when he came.

Castiel wonders if it's something he himself has done, but dismisses it. They're usually quick to tell each other if they're mad, preferring to fight about it, screw each other angrily, resolve the issue in a post-orgasmic haze, then have sleepy and content make-up sex. Dean says this is unhealthy but Castiel thinks it can't be that bad if it works.

What is unhealthy is smoking in the middle of the night and not telling your best friend why.

"I can hear you worrying from here," Dean mutters, right on cue. He sounds vaguely amused.

Castiel doesn't deny it. "Come back to bed."

Dean doesn't reply, just takes another drag on his cigarette and leans his head against the glass. The cigarette crackles faintly where it burns.

"Sam got into Stanford."

Ah.

"Good for Sam," Castiel says carefully, and means it. He helped Sam with his college applications himself and knows how badly he wanted this. Of course, therein lies the problem. Sam has always been desperate to get away, whereas Dean has never expressed any desire to leave Lawrence, let alone Kansas.

"Yeah," Dean huffs, and flicks ash onto a nearby Rolling Stone magazine.

Neither of them say anything for a few minutes, until Dean chuckles softly when there’s a meow from outside and pushes up the squeaky window a few inches to let the cat in.

The cat is officially a stray. She’s a scrawny tabby thing with disproportionately big ears and three legs who once snuck into their apartment and ate an entire bowl of ramen Dean had left to cool. She doesn’t belong to anyone, she makes Dean sneeze sometimes, and they only ever call her ‘the cat’—but somehow in the two years they’ve been living here kibble has been added to their grocery list and stainless steel food bowls have found a place in the corner of the kitchen.

“Get off me, you fleabag,” Dean says affectionately when the cat head-butts his leg, her rumbling purr loud even from where Castiel is. He watches Dean scratch her absent-mindedly behind the ears.

“It’s two days’ drive to Palo Alto,” Castiel remarks quietly, snuffling into the pillow when the tip of his nose catches the chill from the open window. “And that’s only if we stop overnight.”

Dean doesn’t take his eyes off the cat. “I know.” He smokes for a while, silent, hand running over the cat’s arching spine.

“Then what’s the problem?” Castiel prompts, when no further words are forthcoming.

Dean bristles visibly, shoots him a glare over his shoulder before turning back to the window. “There is no problem,” he snaps.

The cat doesn’t like it when they argue. Castiel has always suspected that she can sense the tension and it upsets her, evidenced when she jumps onto the carpet with a soft thump and trots away through the gap in their mostly-closed bedroom door.

With a sigh, Dean jokes, “Even the cat doesn’t wanna stick around,” but it comes out soft and sad.

“Dean.”

“He’s gonna have the time of his life at Stanford. He’s gonna make all these new friends, proper nerds like him, all geekin’ out together. Prob’ly meet a girl, show her his hard on for her annual subscription of The American Lawyer. Get married. Have babies.” He inhales, holds it, puffs out a cloud of smoke. “He’s never gonna wanna come back here, that’s for sure.”

Sometimes, Castiel thinks that Dean has enough issues to keep a therapist employed for a very long time. He loves Dean fiercely, would do anything for him, but will not put up with his misguided self-pity, not about this.

“You’re being stupid,” he says, firm but gentle. “Sam’s not just going to leave you behind and forget about you.”

Dean scowls. “Fuck off, Cas. What would you know?”

Oh, Castiel knows nothing. Yes, despite the fact that they’ve been best friends for nearly all their lives, and that he practically lived with Bobby and the Winchesters when he was growing up, and that he can read Dean better than Dean reads his books—yes, he obviously knows nothing at all.

And even though the bed is warm, and Dean’s being an idiot, and it’s the early hours of the morning, Castiel gets up. He slips a sweatshirt over his head, steps into a pair of boxers, and walks over to him. “Scoot forward,” he instructs.

Rolling his eyes, Dean does as he’s told. Castiel climbs up behind him, wraps his arms around Dean’s middle and pulls him back to his chest. Dean doesn’t even pretend to mind. It’s a tight fit on the window seat, slightly uncomfortable where Castiel’s back presses against the wall, and cold on his bare legs, but Dean is warm and solid against his front.

“It’s just…” Dean says, “Sammy’s been talking about going to Stanford since he was like twelve years old.” He snorts. “You remember when he dropped the bombshell over that Thanksgiving dinner and Bobby had to sit Dad down with a fifth of Jack to stop the old man from having a heart attack?”

Castiel nods. “I do.” How could he not? Things were often volatile in the Winchester household—the lack of a female presence, probably, too many clashing male personalities in one room—and that particular holiday season had been no exception.

Dean flicks his cigarette again. “Wonder what Dad would say now if he were here to see it happen.”

Neither of them have to wonder very hard.

Castiel presses his dry lips to the side of Dean’s neck. Dean shivers, his hand coming up to cover Cas’s on his stomach.

“Have you told Sam how you feel?” Castiel asks gently.

Dean huffs a humorless laugh. “Are you kidding me? ‘Course not. Kid’s been waiting for this his whole life. I’m not gonna rain on his parade. I’m not gonna be my old man.”

Castiel smiles against the soft skin of Dean’s shoulder, because there was a time not even that many years ago when Dean would wear a leather jacket two sizes too big and wanted nothing more than to be his father.

“Even so,” Castiel says, “I think Sam would like to know. There’s nothing wrong with telling him you’ll miss him. I will, too. We’ll have to make the most of our remaining summer together.”

Dean snorts. “You’re just sayin’ that ‘cause now you’re gonna be stuck here with my sorry ass.”

“I happen to love your sorry ass.”

Outside, dawn is beginning to break, cresting on the horizon with a pale blue glow. Castiel kisses the nape of Dean’s neck almost lazily, nosing into his hair. Dean sighs, relaxes into it.

“Sorry for snappin’, Cas.”

“Apology accepted.” Because when would he ever refuse Dean that? He runs his hands up and down Dean’s sides, skin cool to the touch, feels the muscles there jump under his fingertips. Dean is trembling finely.

“Come back to bed,” Castiel says again, and Dean sags against him.

“Yeah, okay.”

He drops his burnt out cigarette into a mug and untangles himself from Castiel’s limbs, sliding off the window seat. Castiel follows and they crawl back into bed, shifting until they’ve found the slightly warmer spot they left behind, spooned up in the middle of the mattress.

Castiel brushes a hand through Dean’s tousled-soft hair. “Want me to help you get to sleep?”

Dean shifts onto his back and quirks an eyebrow, his own hand coming up to thumb across Castiel’s cheekbone. “Think you can go another round? I was kinda rough earlier, wasn’t I?”

“I liked it,” Castiel says honestly, because sex is the one thing they are and always have been honest about; what they do and don’t enjoy, what they would and wouldn’t be willing to try. Sex with Dean is easy, uncomplicated. “But I think it’s your turn.”

“Oh, fuck yeah,” Dean agrees, and rolls onto his stomach.

Straddling him, Castiel peels off his sweatshirt. Then he takes a moment to press an open-mouthed kiss between the wings of Dean’s shoulder blades, which leads to kisses right along the dip of his spine as Castiel slides down his body, dragging the worn blue cotton of Dean’s boxers over the smooth swell of his ass as he goes.

“Lube,” Dean gasps, breathless already.

He opens Dean up with gentle fingers and tongue, slowly and methodically in the same way he does everything else, until Dean is shaking, every muscle pulled taut, thrusting lightly against the sheets. He’s desperate and needy, so soft and vulnerable that warm affection fills the empty spaces behind Castiel’s ribcage, spilling over until he just has to, has to, and he rolls Dean onto his back and falls between the V of his legs and lets their lips touch, feather-light.

“Love you,” Dean whispers, and that does it. Castiel pushes in, slowly, methodically. They both moan, breathe hard, gasp again. Dean’s ankles hook at the small of Castiel’s back and he pulls and Castiel goes—of course he does, of course he does—and they kiss, hot and damp, overwhelming.

Castiel sets an unhurried, dragging pace, toes curled in the cheap sheets, hips rolling, hands gentle on Dean’s face, his sides, his thighs, his everywhere. Sweat makes them shove the blankets away and Castiel has the fleeting desire to get up and open the window, before Dean is groaning his name and his green eyes are wet and bright and he’s clenching down—oh so tight—and then he’s there, tumbling over that knife edge, and so is Castiel and it’s sharp and painful and pulled out of him with a curse, but it’s good too, so good, that sort of good that Castiel didn’t know existed until Dean showed him.

They collapse, boneless, and try to catch their breath. Dean reaches over the side of the bed, comes back with Castiel’s sweater in his loose fist.

“Don’t even think about it,” Castiel says, and goes to get a washcloth. He kisses Dean again as he wipes his stomach and between his legs, and both their lips are swollen and stubble-burned but he doesn’t care one bit. The washcloth misses the hamper and lands somewhere on the floor after he throws it, which Dean laughs at, but Castiel’s already tugging the blankets over their rapidly cooling bodies.

They both get clingy after sex sometimes and Castiel isn’t surprised or disappointed when Dean turns on the octopus limbs and gathers him up in them, mouthing idly at Castiel’s jaw and behind his ear. “’M glad it’s you,” Dean mutters, voice slurred heavily with exhaustion and not making much sense, but Castiel knows because he’s always known.

“Me too,” he says, blinks getting heavier as his eyes get itchier.