Of course, going up alone against the kind of scum that had no problem using infant blood and live organs as ingredients in a spell was never a good idea, but getting to land a bullet in the monster's face was worth all the telekinetic gutting that came after.

 Dean exhaled sharply, breath punched out of his lungs in a way that once again confirmed that any spellcaster this far into the dark side was also stupidly, stupidly powerful. He was pulled upright before he could reach for his gun, and pinned to the wall by an intangible, hateful energy that made his skin crawl. 

 “You ruined my altar,” the warlock informed him. “But not to worry. You’re no innocent lamb, but your heart will do just fine."

 Dean grunted at the pain in his chest; at the horrifying sensation of muscles and sinew being wrenched apart to get at the pulsating thing behind them. His vision turned a bloody white when the first rib broke, but it wasn’t until the second began to splinter that he gathered the breath to ask for a miracle. The first thought which rose from the throes of his pain was a prayer to Castiel, but the invocation that wound around his tongue was older and much more potent than the wry soundbites he used to call on the seraph.

 The syllables of this terrific poetry that tasted like warm copper on his tongue manifested as a burst of coruscating light that streamed into the windowless basement through the very pores of the walls. 

 Everything quaked; brick dust rained from the roof, and what couldn’t hold its structure under the force of this approaching cataclysm, shattered. Including the warlock, Dean realized, because in between gasping for air and searching for his gun, he hadn’t even noticed the harrowing whine of an angel’s true voice above far more human screams.

 He stood up clutching his chest, staggering like a wounded animal in the eye of a storm made of holy light.

“You summoned an archangel? You?!” the warlock screeched in spiteful disbelief. “Who are you?!” 

 Dean barely registered the demand. There was a pyroclast at his back, folded into human form with deceptively sweet green eyes, who filled the acrid lair with an equally sweet, green smell of earth and pine. Michael’s footsteps were soft and purposeful as he approached. Dean sensed his grace rippling in askance.

 “I’m your true vessel,” he gasped roughly, still glaring at the thing he came to hunt. “That’s gotta mean something, don’t it?"

 “It means everything." Michael did not hesitate, as if the mere inkling of Dean’s wishes drew the words from his mouth. 

 “Good,” Dean had his hands around the warlock’s throat even before he finished that single syllable, and Michael slid his own palm over the hunter’s shoulder. Now, they were both that pyroclast—what was Michael flowed through Dean, like a river and its branch for him, but much worse for the warlock whose eyes and mouth exploded into flames. Pure holy fire seared away the monster’s flesh and the profane stanch of black magic until it was nothing more than a handful of ashes. Time seemed to slow, but the last of the embers died eventually and Dean shivered.

 Tied to a comet was an apt description—it felt like his body contained a swarm of stars, and the contradiction between their immensity and his own smallness was giving his brain vertigo. Dean was only vaguely aware of Michael’s arm looping around his chest to steady him; he was fascinated by his palms, which perversely didn’t look any different even after roasting a person alive?

 “Holy shit!” Dean exclaimed, when the magnitude of the act finally hit. “That was—uh…”

 “I know,” Michael hummed against the nape of his neck, as if he just knew the human tongue couldn’t possibly describe what had occurred. For Dean’s part, the pain in his chest was no more, but the archangel’s normally comforting warmth made him feel more lightheaded. Divine wrath was different when it was under one’s own skin, like a solvent that was too harsh, that cleansed a little too deeply and left a patch of the world stripped bare instead of merely tidy.

 Dean swallowed thickly and swept his eyes at the debris of dark witchcraft still scattered just beyond their hallowed radius. “I thought it’d be more satisfying,” he explained, more steadily than he felt. “but maybe I’m getting old.”

 Michael patted his flank in response, his vessel’s fingers slipping under the torn jacket that made up Dean’s FBI disguise. “This kind of vengeance is never about satisfaction,” he replied softly, the rolling timbre of his voice pulling Dean’s attention back to into their single square space containing just them. “It’s about burning the weeds. To save the whole garden, so to speak.”

 Instinctively, Dean wrapped Michael’s arms tighter around himself, to ground the angel as much as himself. “Yeah, well, maybe it’s best if I stick to my own weed-whacker from now, and leave yours to you.”

 Michael laughed at that, and the swooping plumes of light that Dean now recognized as the archangel’s wings threw dramatic shadows against the decrepit walls. “Whatever you say, Dean.”

 -

 From the fringes of the operation, Dean watched the local police raid the warlock’s house and a team of paramedics receive a shivering kids who’d gone missing over the last few days. There was nothing more heartwarming than the sound of families reuniting. Unless, of course, it was his own.

 “That was the stupidest thing you’ve ever done!” Sam was yelling, despite the police chief and at least one deputy side-eyeing his decidedly un-FBI like behavior. “All you had to do was wait a couple minutes and—“

 “Come on, Sam, you’re making a scene,” Dean interrupted, flashing the cops a placating gesture before turning back to his infuriated brother. “You know damn well you’d have gone in after those kids, too. And it all worked out, didn’t it?”

 Sam looked anything but impressed. “Did it?” he countered. “Dean, do you have any idea how lucky you were that an archangel happened to have his ears on?”

 The beginnings of Dean’s reply were lost in a sudden flutter of wings, and Michael’s formidable reappearance to inform them that the lair had been purged of supernatural booby traps.

 “Trouble in paradise?” the angel asked, looking at the two of them over a small bundle he held in his arms.

 “Eh, Sam’s just hangry,” Dean replied and promptly earned an appalling bitch-face from his brother. The hunter frowned warily when the bundle in Michael’s arms began to move. “Uh, what is that?”

 “Oh, this?” Michael asked innocently even as he deposited said ‘this’ into Dean’s arms. It was a baby, one of the ones kidnapped by the psycho they’d just taken care of, and whose cherubic serenity lasted for two whole seconds before the crying began.

 “Oh man, come on—“ Dean floundered, but it wasn’t long before the sound attracted the attention of a paramedic and a tearful woman who’d been restlessly hovering behind the police tape. There was a general ruckus headed their way after that, led by desperately relieved mantras of ‘you found her, you found my baby!’

The low drawl of music and angelic monologue coiled comfortably inside the car. Michael hummed the throaty harsh sounds softly, breathing syllables that were just way out of Dean’s league of vocal capabilities, but despite that, or just thereof maybe, it was soothing, a warmth spreading and thrumming behind Dean’s heart that made him forget the looming chance of a fight over who would shovel off the snow from before the bunker’s entrance.  

Then, rupturing the calm, suddenly Cas appeared on Sam’s lap and immediately turned beat red.

“Hiya, Cas,” Dean greeted. He watched through the rear-view mirror as the two in the backseat awkwardly tried to untangle their legs. “There’s no need to be embarrassed. Everybody knows you love your place on top of Sammy.”

Castiel made a fussy grunt as he finally slipped to the leather seat, cheeks and ears still red, but glare absolutely unamused.

“You are right. And I’m not embarrassed. It’s just,” his gaze skidded to the back of Michael’s head, then immediately turned away. “My timing of arrival was quite unfortunate... Intrusive.

The two Winchesters exclaimed at the same time,

“What?”

“Why?”

“It wasn’t even Ramble on playing,” Sam frowned with a grin.

“Or Traveling Riverside Blues,” interjected Michael innocently.

“Fuck you both.”

“No, it’s not like that,” Cas shook his head, now in slight distress.

“Okay, but will you tell us then what?”

A helpless groan pushed the air out of the angel’s lungs. He looked like a puppy that had just been threatened to be thrown outside in the rain to sleep.

“It’s… what Michael… Please don’t make me repeat it.”

“Why? Was he talking dirty to me and I just didn’t understand? Is that it?” Dean shot a glance sideways, but the little smirk curling in the corner of Michael’s lips was as expressive as ever. It was the I know far more than you and I won’t reveal a bit of itTM smirk. Which could mean a thousand different things.

“I can assure you, Dean, you’d need far more than talk about sexual innuendos to make an angel blush,” Michael said.

“What did you call him, then?” asked Sam, now only a moment away from leaning over the backrest, bouncing with excited curiousity.

Michael hummed a soft sound. His eyes turned to look at Dean.

“Many things... The apple of temptation. Gateway to wisdom long-forgotten. Brave soldier, glorious warrior, magnificent, terrible conqueror-”

“Shut up, will you?”

Dean, face on fire, ears and eyes both burning, tried to put a hand over Michael’s mouth. He succeeded, but only for a moment. On the heel of his palm, the tip of his fingers he could feel the smile curl wider, and a kiss pressed to his skin, which, with a low, pathetic little defeated whine had his fingers unfurl and drop to the other hand waiting to take gentle hold and caress Dean’s still-bruised knuckles.

“I called him Angel of the Night Sky, bearer of stars, sharer of blessings without number, beloved by dawn and jealously adored by the sun--”

“You called him Eoh Monheh,” Castiel blurted, whole face suddenly just as red as Dean’s was.

Michael’s smile softened, his eyes brightened. Dean could feel both - like sunlight touching his very soul.

“I called you my heart, my beloved, my heartbeat,” Michael murmured softly, but on a voice that no thunder, no sundering Earth could have smothered. “I told you that my love for you makes my heart beat, that you are as important to me as air in your lungs, as blood in your veins.”

Dean, foregoing all rules of sanity and logic, and who was he kidding, the road had been swimming in his vision for minutes now, grabbed Michael by the back of his neck and pressed his mouth wherever he could reach glowing warm skin. He clumsily kissed Michael’s cheek, next to his nose before he finally found the archangel’s lips, still lightning sweet with the praise.

Michael hummed another soft note, a period to his hymn, an amen, and so the words were. Just like that. They were what they were - the truth.

“Dean!” Sam exclaimed from the backseat, and Dean put his hands back on the wheel just in time for the truck to rush past them with horns blowing, the driver shaking his fist out the window in passing.

While Cas quietly assured Sam that he had nothing to fear, since he was travelling with two angels, Dean looked back at Michael. He would swear that the sun was missing from the grey sky because it had moved beneath his angel’s skin.

There was no way he could ever get used to this reverent, adoring light that shone at his unimportant little self.

It had never been more difficult to put the thought in the usual phrasing.

The words just spoken pressed against his thoughts, curled around his mind and glowed that much brighter that any ingrained, internalised sense of self-loathing, no matter how deep-rooted, seemed impossible and truly blasphemous in their embrace.

“I swear I’ll drive ourselves into a pole if you talk to me like this again!” he huffed.

Michael just put his head on Dean’s shoulder. He could feel the skin prickle with heat under layers of clothes, and the freckles burn, each a star the angel loved to count.

“I talk to you as I please,” Michael said, smug, loving. “You pressed for a translation.”

“Remind me to never do that again.”

“You won’t be happy about it.”

“Whatever.”

Dean made a vow not to ever dive further into learning Angelic.

Although he’ll have to pester Cas, despite his obvious flustered state over the words, to teach him how to pronounce this… my heart-thing. He suspected it would never sound as holy and world-changing as it did flowing from Michael’s lips.

A/N: Okay, so this obviously needs to be stated. The phrase I used is not Enochian, as it had been pointed out as well, and this is why, if you paid attention, I tried to sidestep calling it so in the fic. I took it from a post I linked made by fathersgreatflood, who put together words and phrases  from dialects of Akkadian and Syriac, and that is probably the closest what we’d get for what they used as the Angelic tongue for Dominion. 

Dean rubbed at his eyes. “I wasn’t bad,” he grumbled at Michael’s back. “Even Sam could hear you moan it in the other room last week.”

“Don’t complain to me,” Michael shrugged, however, to Dean’s smug delight, there was a thin shade of pink crawling up the back of his neck, that definitely wasn’t due to the heat over the oven. “It’s not my feast. Besides, that’s why you got the mandarins.”

“You need some vitamin-C,” coughed Sam, both in order to annoy and to mask up the embarrassment at the reminder.  

“But you’re the multicultural asshole.”

“So you don’t want breakfast either?”

“That depends… were you in France again, because I warn you. Snails ain’t acceptable meal any time of the day.”

“As a matter of fact, I spent the past two days in Istanbul. However,” Michael paused to arrange whatever he had in the frying pan onto plates, “I thought you’d prefer an English breakfast to cheese and olives.”

When Michael turned around, with absolutely no shame at all, Dean moaned at the sight. Sausage, bacon, beans and eggs and whatever else had never looked better than in Michael’s hands when he was only wearing one of Dean’s old shirts and boxers.

The plates barely touched the table’s smooth surface when Dean already had a secure grip around the angel’s collar and jerked him towards himself so that Michael ended up half sprawled over him, mouths only a thin breath away.

“You’ve never been this close to changing my mind on religion,” Dean murmured.

Michael’s eyes narrowed on the smile that unfurled his lips from over his flashing teeth.

“What can I do,” he drawled. “You look so pretty on your knees in front of me.”

Words and thoughts pressed against him had Dean shiver in his seat. However, before he could prod a bit further for the exact position in which he looked so pretty Sam not so subtly cleared his throat.

“Guys, we’ve talked about this.”

“What? You’ve got food.”

“Yeah, and I’d love not to see it back in a minute, thanks.”

“You’ve got chocolate too.”

Before the fight could get to the next level, which inevitably would lead to a rather regrettable food-fight, Michael elegantly placed himself in Dean’s lap, hooked an arm around his shoulder and murmured a few words in his ear, that even though he could not understand, they carried a promise far better than riling up Sam second thing in the morning.

“Okay, you can keep your damn Santa,” Dean announced, then he turned to observe the self-satisfied little quirk at the corner of Michael’s lips. “You promised something good, right?”

Emerald

  Michael enjoys driving in silence, but right at the moment he doesn’t dare to turn off the radio. It’s set on a classic rock station, because no one is allowed to touch it but the driver, and since it’s John Winchester’s car it’s always on something classic and eternal. Even when Michael gets special permission to take the Impala and Dean for a ride, he values his life enough to keep his hands to himself.

He only dared as much as to lower the volume to a soothing rumble that accompanies nicely the car’s engine.

They are on a straight road, so Michael glances to the side and cannot help the warmth that spreads in his chest. Dean has nodded off.

Ten minutes ago Dean was aggressively sulking. Lush, still kiss-reddened lips pinched into a pout that always made Michael smile, arms crossed over his chest and stubbornly turning away from his boyfriend.

“I only asked if I could drive a bit,” Dean sulked, and any five-year-old would feel jealous of that passive aggressive peevishness.

“And I told you all the ten times that I won’t risk your Father hunting me down if his car is broken on my watch.”

“I wouldn’t break her!”

“Of course you would. You are blind, Dean. You would wrap us around a tree in the first bend.”

“Fuck. You.” Dean hissed. Then his shoulders slumped in resignation. He added in a lower tone, “I’ve known these roads since I was born, you bitch. I could drive down them with my eyes closed.”

“That would make such a big difference,” Michael said gently, placating.

A muscle in Dean’s jaw tightened, but eventually his mouth pinched back from the sad, firm line into that adorable pout, and Michael counted it as a win.

Michael would lie if he claimed he wasn’t tempted for a fleeting second to allow Dean to sit behind the wheel. He trusts him. He trusted him even before they were together. Even before he realized he loved him. Or maybe that happened around the same time. He couldn’t tell, especially that he needed Lucifer to kick his ass to make them as a couple final. But all in all, Dean’s father was more threatening. Michael knew better. He really wants to achieve his MA degrees. He has worked hard enough for them.

He still can recall quite vividly the last time his life was hanging on a thread.

It happened during this Christmas-break which was more than eight months ago, but he really doesn’t want to relive the experience just yet.

John came to pick them all up and bring back to Kansas. Michael was maybe just a tiny bit remorseful that he didn’t spend Christmas with his brother,  but he made up for that on New Year’s Eve. So when they were packed in (Sam, the giant, carefully folded next to John) Michael might have dropped a belittling comment about the car and her age. Something about the Impala getting stuck in the snow.

The air in the Impala froze. It was colder inside than outside.

“Dude, you just signed your capital sentence,” Sam snickered from the front seat.

Dean was eerily quiet at his side and even Cas sent him a pitying look.

John scoffed. “Let me tell you, son,” (how much Michael hated being called son!) “She survives any blizzard, safe and sound.” He pointed at the Sedan that came in the opposite line, “Even better than that flashy sports car.”

Michael frowned.

“Oh my God!” Dean exclaimed by his side with the exasperated frown he wore when Michael did something worse than the Original Sin. “Don’t tell me I’m dating a guy with no taste in cars!”

“No taste in cars?” Michael echoed incredulously.

“You can’t appreciate a classic.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Your frown did. I could hear you frown, your highness. If you say you’d rather be in a Porsche or other gaudy shit metal-coffin, I swear it’s reason for breaking up.”

Suddenly, Michael felt as if he was in the middle of an arena fighting tigers and bears with bare hands. Dean’s hold tightened on his knee, as if to warn him for the way John eyed him via the rear-view mirror. Even Sam tried to give him some warning signs subtly. He already had a handicap for his “lack of taste in music” as he had experienced the last time he got tangled up in an argument with the eldest male members of the Winchester family.

He was at test here. Michael never failed a test. (It only motivated him better that he didn’t want John to go full ex-marine on him.)

“Well, I wouldn’t really buy a classic like this one,” Michael said coolly. Just as he answered at all his finals.

“What would you, then?” John asked, eyes flashing warningly.

Michael’s knee will have five dents where Dean’s fingers dug in. Tension cracked in the air.

“Rolls Royce. With a driver.” Michael deadpanned with a shadow of a smirk that Dean kissed away after letting out a relieved chuckle.

John hummed as well. Michael survived.

Michael wonders if he will ever pass all of John Winchester’s tests. Not that he cares that much, but it would be nice if Dean didn’t have a minor mental breakdown before he brings Michael home.

Now, though, as he glances to the side the sight is so endearing he only smiles even at the memory of Dean pacing the living room like a caged animal. It feels like he is falling deeper and deeper in love with each glance he steals of his boyfriend.

He loves the sight. Dean relaxed, in casual clothes he just threw on. Torn, well-worn pale jeans, threads standing out each and every direction as an obvious sign that Dean has been picking on them through most of his life, a loose black tank-top and the ever-present plaid shirt off one shoulder displaying a patch of golden star-shower. Even though he blushes furiously and bats at Michael’s shoulder every single time he tells Dean how beautiful he is, it doesn’t change anything at all. Michael decided he will kiss his praise to each freckle that covers Dean’s skin, and now at the end of summer he has even more tiny star to count.

Michael pulls the car to the side but doesn’t kill the engine just yet. He is not a real morning person and he has so little time admiring Dean asleep.

His gaze graces Dean’s features warmly as the sun filtering through the shrouds paints its patchwork on them. In the dance of the soft shadows he can make out the tiny white scars on Dean’s temple, a small cut next to his ear and one in the corner of his eyebrow.

Probably the only thing Michael feels remorseful sometimes is that he can never see what colour Dean’s eyes would glimmer seeing him.  Not that he doesn’t like them as they are now – quite the contrary, he finds the silver layer over the green orbs just as beautiful as the whole man. But there is just something he can’t help wondering about when he sees the pictures of Dean in his teen years hanging around in the family house.

Moreover, Mary was more than happy to show Michael Dean’s photo album. Dean tried to protest, “It’s not fair! Mom, stop embarrassing me! I can’t see his baby pics so he can’t see mine either!”

Dean gave an attempt to grab the album, but Michael was quick to catch his flailing hands and pulled him close to his side, kissing his pouting boyfriend on the cheek.

“I’m sure Luce will be thrilled to describe our whole photo-album in explicit detail.”

“But you looked like the same.” Dean pouted. “You can always claim it was him embarrassing himself and just trying to make you look stupid.”

“Shouldn’t it help you humiliate me? I’m sure you can use your imagination either way.”

Dean huffed. But later made sure to hunt down Lucifer and Michael had to survive the worst weekend of his entire life.

For the record he was very tempted to steal a picture or two from the album, because the colour of Dean’s eyes was painfully mesmerizing. They varied from bottle green through all the shades of the summer forest, speckled with brown and tinted thin lines of gold around the pupils, but Michael’s favourite was a close up of Dean smiling bright, the stars shining under his skin at a beach, one arm draped over Sam’s shoulders. His eyes though! There was no gem that could compete with that perfect shade of emerald.

By now those precious stones have gained an opalesque hue. But sometimes, when the sunrays beat down on Dean’s face just like right now Michael can steal flashes of that colour.

Michael kills the engine before he melts too much. As expected Dean wakes immediately.

“Jeeez!” he yawns and stretches awkwardly. “Haven’t I told you enough not to let me doze off?”

“You were too adorable.”

Dean pulls a mortified, disdainful grimace and smacks at Michael’s shoulder.

“Where are we? In the middle of nowhere?” he asks instead and opens the door to stretch his legs.

“Just where you instructed,” Michael tells him and gets out himself quickly so that he can be the one to pull Dean to his feet.

“Good little soldier, you,” Dean teases but doesn’t flinch away when Michael takes his hand, and soon they are standing in the sun surrounded by birds singing on both shores of the lazy river.

Michael lets the remark slide and follows Dean to the front of the Impala.

For a long minute Dean stops and only stands in the sun, golden grass under his feet, the light breeze passing over the river caresses his cheeks and musses his sandy blonde hair. He takes a deep breath, holds it in then exhales with a small, content smile curling at the edge of his lips.

“So, why did you want to come here?” Michael asks cocking his head to the side.

Dean turns back to him and walks back to the car to then settle on the hood, his feet resting on the bumper. His smile shifted into one that always made Michael’s heart clench.

“I have always loved this car, you know,” Dean started. He put one hand on the polish with so much care. “There were times, when, ugh, you could say this was my home. Dad and Mom fought and I ended up travelling with Dad for a while. Just the Impala, us, his old cassettes collection and the road. I- I… Dad promised if I was good I will have her.”

He shook his head.

“That’s clearly not going to happen. But, I was so obsessed with her that when I was fifteen, Dad promised, if I got all C’s in my record he’d teach me to drive. I nailed it, Mike. I got all C’s and even two B’s and an A somehow.”

Michael smiles and leans in to kiss Dean on the cheek. When he wants to pull back to give Dean more space, the blond’s hand is twisted in the hem of his shirt, the other’s fingers in his belt loops keeping him between Dean’s knees.

Dean gives Michael a bashful smile before he drops his head to rest on Michael’s collarbone.

“By next summer I learnt to drive. I still can, you know. Just as I could rebuild her in my sleep… But Dad didn’t let me drive on my own just yet. Mom always joked that he loved the Impala better than her… I was sixteen when I finally could. I was so excited I could barely sleep. Damn, even an Apocalypse coming couldn’t have stopped me from finally taking her on a drive on my own. I swear I would have chased the Deil back to Hell if I had to!

“… This was where I took Sammy. We were just sitting out here for hours. Not a long drive, I know but…”

“It’s important. I get it,” Michael murmured into Dean’s hair.

“We came here often afterwards. I was driving, Sammy bitching about the music. Star gazing, studying. Sometimes I came alone. Even when I could drive further I just came here. I like it here…”

Around the end the confession grew so soft, the words were barely more than Dean’s breath ghosting warm at Michael’s collar.

They stand as they are for long minutes. Allowing the sun to warm their shoulders and back, the shadows to stretch and pull back like the heavy waves on the shore. There is the scent of water in the breeze, the fresh aroma of green.

Suddenly, something screeches in the distance. Dean jumps, and Michael has to tighten his hold around him just to be sure. Dean erupts in embarrassed chuckles and bumps his head back against Michael’s shoulder.

He leans back, as if he was zapped and Michael is just getting worried if he got stung or something but the next second Dean’s mouth is searching for his, mouthing along his jaw until he finds lips and they kiss. First Michael is a bit slow on the uptake but as soon as Dean’s tongue swipes along the seam of his lips he is more than ready to deepen their kiss.

It quickly leads to a long make-out session where Dean’s legs are wrapped around Michael’s hips, one hand buried in his hair making a good job that there is no way Michael could rearrange it into anything that doesn’t look like as if he just got out of bed after a night of sex, while Dean’s other hand is wandering under Michael’s shirt, mapping out the warm skin with teasing light touches. On the other hand Michael’s own fingers are digging into Dean’s hips, and tracing the line of his spine that always leaves him shuddering deliciously.

“Enough touchy-feely for this year?” Dean asks eventually. His voice is hoarse, breathy, but not debauched enough, so Michael feels compelled to bite down on his shoulder. That makes Dean yelp and jump in his seat.

“Why do you have to ruin our moments all the time?”

“Lucifer ruins our moments all the time.”

Michael tears away from Dean’s neck wincing.

“Could you not bring up my brother when we are intimate?”

“Ooh, someone’s getting mortified here,” Dean drawls. His hand is slowly trailing down to settle on his belt buckle. “I wonder how much that affects you though…”

“Enough to suspect you are up to something.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.” Dean is a great master of looking innocent as a newborn baby, but right now he is only as the cat who just ate the canary with the bird’s yellow feathers still sticking out of its mouth.

“Naaah.”

“Dean.”

“What? I could be nice. Or horny. It’s nice, and calm, and warm, and you are all hot over me, I can be horny,” the blond pinches his lips into another pout.

Michael wants to slap himself that it took him this long to figure out what Dean wanted.

“We are not having public sex so that I would let you drive back,” he states firmly.

“The back seat is kinda comfortable if that’s your problem.”

“Not even semi-public sex, Dean.”

“You’re impossible. Okay, our school starts sooner than Luce’s, right? We have an empty apartment for –hmpf!”

“Dean, stop it.” Dean nips at Michael’s palm over his mouth and makes muffled sounds of dismay. “You are not going to buy me, because we are going to spend the next two days in bed either way.” Dean huffs irritated. “Still no. You know the place, I got it, but there are so many things that can go wrong, love. I don’t want anything to happen to you. You know I care for you more than the car.”

Since they got together Michael’s emotional scale has broadened spectacularly. Now he can do honest, he can do gentle and loving. It feels strange and amazing all the same.

Dean sags in his hold. He knows what the tone change means.

“Sorry,” Michael breathes a kiss to Dean’s forehead.

After a pause of miserable silence Dean brushes his nose along Michael’s jawline.

“Please.” He wouldn’t be Dean Winchester if he gave up so easily. “Just as long until I can put her into second gear. Nothing more, I swear. The road goes on straight long enough that nothing can happen, please, Michael?” He speaks hushed and quick, small pearly rosary of prayers against Michael’s throat.

“Dean, no.”

“Please, I swear. You can have my share of pie if I don’t stop after she’s in second gear.”

That’s the last straw Michael can take. He takes Dean’s face between his hands and kisses his boyfriend deep and sloppy.

When he pulls back, he doesn’t have to say anything Dean’s face is already lit up by the brightest grin ever.

“Second gear.”

“Second gear,” Dean promises.