#gentledomcas

“I’m so sorry.” Dean’s voice was weak this time; deflated, nearly a plea.

“Dean,” Cas whispered back- a plea all its own- “I was worried; not angry.” He rubbed small circles onto Dean’s chest, an exercise they had done many times before. Breathe with me. “The grocery store not having something isn’t your fault. Bad traffic isn’t your fault-”

“But I should have-”

“No.” Cas’s voice was firm. “You called me Castiel when you came inside. Did you mean that? You want to initiate?”

Dean was silent for only a moment. “Yes, Castiel.”

“Oh, sweet boy,” Cas murmured, cupping his free hand to Dean’s jaw, “then I know you want to listen.” Dean’s eyes had hardly gone to his feet when Cas said, so gently, “Look at me, sweet boy.”

Dean did.

“We had negotiated for a scene when you got home today. That doesn’t mean we’re beholden to it. If you’re too upset, we can- and I would like to- do something else instead. If you still want to do this, though, we’ll just take some time now to calm down and reset before we start. Is that something you would want to do?”

Even as Cas continued rubbing calming circles into Dean’s chest, his voice came out tight and breathless. “Yes, Castiel.”

Slowly, Cas nodded. Dean felt as Cas raised his other arm, cupping his face in both hands now. He felt as Cas’s hands brushed down his neck, over his shoulders, down his arms. As Cas gingerly squeezed both his hands.

“Come with me,” Cas murmured, guiding them both into the next room and onto the couch. He instructed Dean to sit and then lie back, cradling Dean’s head in the crook of his own shoulder.

“I’m going to ask you a question, and I want you to answer. Do you understand?”

He felt a single, firm squeeze on his hand; Yes, Castiel.

Cas sighed, screwing his eyes shut for just a moment. Oh, Dean. “For the rest of this conversation,” he soothed, “I’d like you to answer verbally, if you can.” Cas rubbed more lulling circles into Dean’s back, trying to give him a moment to just breathe.

“Are you good?” he finally asked.

Safely nestled into Cas’s side, Dean burned. He couldn’t even unbury his face to look up.

The silence became tangible, its own character in the dialogue.

“Oh, sweet boy. Look at me.” Cas guided Dean’s face out from where it was hiding in his shoulder, kissing slowly at the worry lines in his forehead. “You are good.”

Dean stayed frozen, exactly as Cas left him.

Cas sighed again, small and sad.

“Are you good?” he asked again.

Seconds passed before Dean uttered a barely audible “yes.”

“Mhm, that’s wonderful, sweet boy. Yes, you are. Now, when I ask you that again, I want you to respond in the affirmative by saying ‘I am good.’ Do you understand?”

This time Dean’s mouth said yes before his brain really registered what was happening, and Cas smiled softly.

“Are you good?”

The silence spoke again as Dean’s agreement caught up with him; but he had made the agreement, after all.

“‘m good,” he finally mumbled, hardly loud enough to register.

“Enunciate,” Cas encouraged him.

The “I am good,” came out on a breath, small. Cas kissed Dean’s forehead again.

“Very good. Now, keep that pattern. Are you deserving of love?”

Dean cast his eyes down.

Cas waited.

And waited.

“I am deserving of love.”

“Yes, you are. And are you mine?"

"I am yours."

This sentiment came out far more easily than the others- a fact not lost on Castiel.

"You are mine," he murmured gently, pausing to kiss Dean’s temples and forehead. To cradle his face. To look him directly in the eye.

"You're mine because you want to be,” he gleamed. “And because I want you to be. You're mine because you're brave enough and strong enough and selfless enough to give yourself to me. Before you're mine, sweet boy, you are your own. Every day you wake up belonging to yourself, and you choose to give yourself to me instead. Do you understand how incredible that is? It's so powerful.”

A gorgeous heat was creeping across Dean’s face and neck, but Cas wasn’t done. Dean needed to hear all of this; to know it. “It's beautiful,” he went on. “You're beautiful. And I am awed by you. By how good you are, in every sense of the word. I am the luckiest man on earth, that you chose me to trust with yourself. And it's my job to prove to you how lucky I am, to make you aware of what a gift you are. As long as you're mine, I want to take impossibly good care of you, because that's what you deserve. Do you understand that?"

The words were clamoring like church bells in Dean's mind, but he still managed to nod. He managed to hear as Cas asked once more, "Now, are you good?"

"I am good," he breathed again, and this time he almost believed it.

"Are you deserving of love?"

"I am deserving of love."

Cas kissed his forehead again and smoothed down his hair. Dean preened into the touch.

"And you are loved- so loved. Tell me you're loved."

"I am loved," was accompanied by a blush. Dean saw his favorite smile- gentle and dark- settle onto Cas's face.

"Tell me you're mine."

“I am yours, Castiel.”

Cas’s grin curled into something playful and wicked at the honorific. He stroked a hand through Dean’s hair again.