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The first time they kiss, it’s not a kiss at all.
Castiel is kneeling in the mud, and there’s a slow tide of panic starting to wash over him, because Dean isn’t breathing. Castiel killed the creature that dragged Dean under the surface, had immediately pulled Dean up for air and onto the shore, but Dean still isn’t breathing. Castiel’s borrowed grace is weak and flickering, barely enough to light a candle at the moment and certainly not enough to do any kind of healing, and Dean still isn’t breathing. Sam is miles away doing reconnaissance in the town because they didn’t realize they would stumble across the monster so quickly, and Dean still isn’t breathing.
Objectively, he knows the concept of mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He knows how human bodies work, he knows the complicated processes of the respiratory system. Knowing and doing are two very different things, but he also knows how long the human brain can be deprived of air before suffering permanent damage, so he has no choice but to try.
He expects to feel something - he’s not sure what - when he puts his lips to Dean’s for the first time. Maybe something like a shock from static electricity, or a vibration under his vessel’s skin like the rumble of nearby thunder, or a flip in his stomach like the moment before spreading his wings to fly. Instead, there’s only the burgeoning panic and the running mantra of breathe breathe breathe.
Castiel breathes air into him - air that he probably needs for himself. Angels don’t need to breathe, but he’s not much of an angel at the moment.
He forces air into Dean’s mouth again, and again, fingers curled around the back of Dean’s neck. He’s pausing for another breath when Dean spasms, a wet noise clawing out of his throat, and starts to cough. Castiel immediately pushes him onto his side, and Dean heaves up water and continues coughing.
Finally, with a groan, Dean flops onto his back. He’s breathing heavily, but he’s breathing. The sheer relief brings sudden pinpricks of tears to Castiel’s eyes, and it’s such a human reaction, but he doesn’t care. He sits back heavily on his heels, and at the movement, Dean’s eyes flick over to him. There’s a moment where Castiel knows they’re both thinking about how close Dean came to dying.
Then Dean carefully pushes himself onto an elbow and raises his fingers to his lips.
“…dude, please tell me you didn’t mack on me while I was out,” he jokes weakly. His voice is hoarse and raw from coughing. “Talk about taking advantage of a guy when he’s down. C’mon, man, you’re better than that.”
Joking is good. If Dean is joking, he’s going to be all right.
Castiel huffs and manages a faint smile. “A little gratitude would be nice.”
♥( ˘ ³˘)♥
The second time they kiss, it’s because of magic.
They’re cataloging items in the Bunker and checking them against old inventory logs, making lists of items that might be useful, dangerous, or should never see the light of day.
“I can’t find these anywhere on the inventory,” Dean says, peering into a small box containing a set of earrings. They’re small and rather plain, just two burnished gold discs. Castiel thinks they’re rather pretty, like tiny yellow suns, but he also has no experience with jewelry and what constitutes good taste, so he doesn’t share that opinion.
Dean’s gaze roves down the inventory list again, then back to the box, and then back to the list. Finally, with a shrug, he sets the list down and plucks up one of the earrings between two fingers.
“Dean!” Sam barks, but it’s too late.
They wait, holding a collective breath.
When nothing happens, Sam exhales angrily. “Jesus Christ, Dean! You can’t just go around touching things! Everything is here for a reason, even if we don’t know what the reason is.”
Dean dangles the earring in front of his face, scrutinizing it, turning it over in his fingers. “I dunno, man. Maybe one of the Men just misplaced a gift for his girlfriend or something. These things seem fine, nothing’s happened.”
“Maybe I’ll be able to sense something,” Castiel offers. With careful fingers, he picks up the other earring from the box to see if he can feel any magical properties.
Immediately his spine stiffens, his entire body going rigid with tension. He can see Dean jerk violently at the same time, as if reeling from a gunshot. They lock eyes and stare at each other, which isn’t new by any means, but Castiel feels now like he couldn’t look away even if he tried – and then they’re moving forward as if drawn by a magnet, crowding into each other’s space. It’s like he’s a marionette being tugged along by strings, every movement out of his control. His hand reaches up to cup the back of Dean’s head at the same time Dean settles a warm palm on Castiel’s hip over his shirt, gripping tight and jerking him closer, and then they’re kissing.
There’s electricity this time, although he’s not sure if it’s because of the spell or because he’s kissing Dean, actually kissing him, not just resuscitating him from the brink of death.
He tries to fight the magic, rages impotently against it. He wants this, but he doesn’t want it this way, because this is not of Dean’s own volition. It doesn’t matter that Dean’s lips are soft and dry, or that Dean’s tongue is tracing the seam of Castiel’s mouth, because Dean is not under his own control – but it’s so hard to focus on that thought when Dean’s thumb is rubbing circles against his hip –
Vaguely, as if from a great distance, Castiel feels his fingers on one hand being pried open. His fist is clenched tight, rigid and refusing to open easily, but slowly his grip is slackened. Then there’s a loud snap of a wooden box being closed, and he jerks back and gasps as if resurfacing from a current that had dragged him under. Dean jerks away at the same time, sucking in his own ragged breath, and they stare at each other uncomfortably.
A pointed cough draws Castiel’s attention to Sam, standing with his hand on the closed lid of the earring box, still grasping the frayed rag that he’d used to hold the earrings and keep them from touching his own skin.
“Just so we’re clear, I’m going to file this incident under ‘Things I’m Pretending Never Happened’,” Sam says awkwardly.
Dean clears his throat, belatedly snatching his hand away from Castiel’s hip. “Yeah. That. Let’s do that.”
Castiel nods, lowering his own hand from the soft fringe of hair at the nape of Dean’s neck, and crushes the pang of disappointment.
♥( ˘ ³˘)♥
The third time they kiss, it tastes like ash.
Dean’s eyes are black and cruel, a demon’s eyes, reflecting like an oil spill in the dim light of the dungeon, but the things coming out of Dean’s mouth are even crueler.
“Castiel,” Dean drawls lazily. He’s smiling, but Castiel doesn’t like this smile at all. “Castiel. Cas, Cas, Cas. The broken angel. The Winchesters’ pet.”
Sam has stepped outside into the hallway. Castiel doesn’t blame him. With each spiteful, painful thing Dean had spat at Sam over the past few hours, his face had become a little more and more strained. Castiel understands why Sam needs to retreat for a few moments and take some time to compose himself, but now, with Sam out of the room, apparently it’s Castiel’s turn.
“The things I could tell you,” Dean says, making a thoughtful tsking sound. “The things rattling around in this head. I’m telling you, it ain’t pretty.” He chuckles darkly. “God, what a friggin’ sad-sack… ‘woe is me, my mommy and daddy died, my brother left me, the angel is too good for me’.”
Castiel says nothing. Dean is looking for a reaction out of him, and Castiel refuses to give him one.
Dean must sense it, because he changes tactics, leaning forward and pulling slightly against his bonds. “And the things I’ve done, Cas. You have no idea. And I’m not talking about just in Hell, or in Purgatory. I’m talking about the blood of innocent people here, in the real world. Your precious Righteous Man is a fucking monster. Someone should’ve done the world a favor and ganked me a long time ago.”
A muscle in Castiel’s cheek jumps as he clenches his teeth. “Stop it.”
A smirk ticks up at the corner of Dean’s mouth. “How does it feel, knowing you’ve ruined yourself for a piece of shit like me? Like your wings, lost your family, for a demon? Does it break your fucking heart?”
Castiel meets his eyes. “No. Because this isn’t you. Not all of you.”
Dean barks a laugh and leans back in the chair again. “Newsflash, Cas. This IS all of me. This is the real Dean, when he’s not trying to sweep those nasty parts of himself under the rug. Green eyes, black eyes, it doesn’t matter. The darkness was always there, now I’m just not holding it back. You want to know who Dean Winchester is? Congratulations, you’re lookin’ at him - honest and totally himself for the first time in his goddamn life.” Dean sneers. “All of your sacrifices were fucking worthless. You gave up everything for nothing.”
Like a storm front, Castiel moves in. There’s surprise in those black eyes when he grips Dean’s jaw tight in his fingers, and he feels a small amount of smugness at that.
“Listen to me very carefully, Dean Winchester. You are a good man.”
Dean snarls, trying to jerk his face away, but Castiel tightens his grip perilously.
“I’m not finished,” he growls. “You are a good man, whether you are man or demon. I did not give up everything for nothing. You were worth saving then. You are worth saving now. I would choose to save you every time, because I know you. I have cradled your soul in my palms, I have seen the darkness and the pain and the horror in it, and it is beautiful because it’s the soul of a person who has sacrificed everything. You will not scare me away by showing me the darkness in your soul, because I already know it. And I am still here.”
Words are one thing, but he needs to show Dean that he means every word he says. He needs to leave no room for doubt, so he bends down and presses his mouth hard against Dean’s. Dean tastes like smoke and something singed, the bitter taste of a demon, but Castiel doesn’t care. It’s Dean.
There’s a whimper against his mouth, broken, and Castiel pulls back to fix Dean with a hard glare. “Now come back to us.”
♥( ˘ ³˘)♥
The fourth time they kiss, they fall into it.
That is, Dean falls against Castiel as he stumbles over a hole in the bar parking lot, limbs loose and warm and coursing with multiple shots of whiskey. He winds an arm around Castiel’s shoulders as he attempts to catch himself, jerking Castiel forward, and presses his other hand Castiel’s chest.
He laughs at his own clumsiness, body vibrating against Castiel’s where they’re pressed together from chest to knee, and it makes Castiel laugh too, whiskey sitting warmly in his own stomach. It doesn’t affect him as strongly, thanks to an angelic metabolism, so he’d had to drink more - a lot more - to put them on even footing. Learning to play pool while drunk had been a fascinating experience.
They’re so close, he realizes suddenly, that he can smell Dean’s aftershave. He wonders if they look crazy, standing pressed together in the middle of an empty parking lot in the middle of the night. He wonders if there’s a way to put a pool table in the Bunker so they could play whenever they wanted. He wonders if he could count the number of Dean’s eyelashes, barely inches from his own face. Then he stops wondering anything at all and fills with wonder instead, because Dean is kissing him.
The kiss is clumsy. They both taste like whiskey. Dean has two day-old stubble that scratches roughly against Castiel’s own. It’s perfect. Castiel thinks he could stand here and kiss Dean like this forever.
Of course, as soon as he thinks it, Dean breaks the kiss and pulls back.
“Sorry,” Dean mutters, shaking his head as if to clear it. “Sorry. I don’t know why… just – the booze, y’know? I do crazy shit when I’m drunk. And it’s been…a while, just feeling pent up. It doesn’t mean anything, can we forget this ever happened?”
Dean pushes away from Castiel’s chest, extricating his arms. It feels cold with Dean standing so far away, but Castiel lets him go.
“Okay,” he says quietly. It’s the last thing in the world he wants to do, but Dean asked. For Dean, he’ll do it.
He thinks he understands the term that humans call ‘heartache’.
♥( ˘ ³˘)♥
The fifth time they kiss, Castiel thinks he must have died, or come close to it.
He’s not entirely sure what happened, but he feels terrible. Leaking grace in a couple of places, courtesy of an angel blade, will usually do that to him. He does remember that part. It’s rather depressing that it’s become a common theme in his interactions with other angels these days, angels who used to be his brothers and comrades-in-arms.
“Cas! Thank fuck, you’re okay.”
There’s a hand clenched tightly in the front of his shirt, another one pushing the hair back from his forehead.
“‘Okay’ is a relative term,” Castiel manages to croak out, but Dean doesn’t seem to hear him. He’s crouched next to Castiel, leaning over, face white and shaken.
“Fuck, Cas, I thought you were dead – your wounds healed themselves up after a bit but you still weren’t waking up, no matter what I did – god, I really thought that was it – “
And then Dean kisses him, desperate and messy and achingly tender, carefully reaching up to cradle Castiel’s bruised face in his hands with the most feather-light of touches. It simultaneously lasts too long, because Castiel hurts everywhere, and not nearly long enough, because Castiel would gladly die from the most excruciating pain if it meant Dean would keep kissing him. But then Dean breaks the kiss, eyes meticulously roving over him, checking for any missed injuries.
And just like that, it’s back to business. Dean snakes an arm under his shoulders and helps lever him up into a sitting position, quietly murmuring a summary of what happened after Castiel passed out, and how Sam had outsmarted the other angels and managed to send them packing. It’s so casual, so normal, that he can’t understand it. As if the kiss a moment ago had never happened, or as if Dean didn’t even realize what he’d done.
Still, if getting kissed is the response he gets after being grievously injured, Castiel has serious concerns about his own self-preservation in the future.
♥( ˘ ³˘)♥
The sixth time they kiss, there is no momentous prelude.
Dean is sitting across from him at the kitchen table, leaning forward on his elbows as he talks. He’s telling Castiel a story from his childhood, about a time when he and Sam had snuck into a movie theater to watch a horror film, and how the theater attendant had tried to chase them out until they’d had to hide in the women’s restroom. It’s been a slow week with a break from cases, and Dean is relaxed and open, lips parted in a grin as he talks. Castiel is having a difficult time focusing on the details of the story; he’s too focused on the crinkles at the corners of Dean’s eyes as he tips his head back and laughs at one of his own jokes, and the content thrum of his soul, and -
- and suddenly, Castiel is tired of waiting. He is tired of pretending, and forgetting, and not mentioning. He is millenniums old, he has spent centuries at a single post in his garrison, he has watched civilizations rise and crumble, but at that moment, the thought of waiting one more second is anathema. It would be a tragedy for one more moment to pass without him kissing Dean.
So he does. He leans forward over the table and kisses him, in the middle of a sentence.
Dean makes a strangled noise and sways oddly, as if struggling between the urge to lean forward into the kiss or pull back.
The latter wins, and Dean jerks away. His green eyes are wary, searching Castiel’s face.
“What the fuck, Cas?” He doesn’t sound angry, at least - just confused. He’s touching his mouth with his fingertips, but Castiel doesn’t think he realizes he’s doing it. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“To be perfectly honest: nothing,” Castiel admits. The honesty feels like a weight is lifting from him. “I just wanted to kiss you, so I did.”
“Damn it, Cas,” Dean mutters. “That’s not – we don’t – you can’t just do that. That’s not something we do.”
“But it is,” he points out patiently.
“No,” Dean insists. “No, it’s not. Not without –“ He cuts off, looking uncomfortable.
…not with an excuse, Castiel realizes. Not without extenuating circumstances, or something to fall back on. Not without a safety net.
No. Castiel is done with those.
“I want it to be something we do. I want to kiss you all the time. I want to stop counting kisses.”
“Counting-! You count our kisses?”
Castiel fixes him with a challenging look. “You don’t?”
Dean flushes at that, shifting in his seat, but doesn’t answer. Castiel can see the excuses gearing up in his head, the whirring thoughts, the building deflections. He wants to knock them all down, bowl them over under the onslaught of his conviction that he and Dean should be together.
…but he can also see the nervous energy under Dean’s skin, the tight line of his mouth, the uneasy rippling of his soul, and that’s when he realizes: Dean is afraid.
Like a riverbank, Castiel caves in. He leans forward and puts a hand over Dean’s on the tabletop. It tenses beneath his, but Dean doesn’t pull away, and he gently curls his fingers around Dean’s knuckles.
“Dean.” He waits until Dean looks at him. It takes a few moments, Dean’s eyes darting around the room and looking everywhere but Castiel - at the tabletop, at the shelves against the wall, at the open doorway as if seeking an escape - but eventually Dean’s gaze is reluctantly dragged back, as if he can’t resist the pull of Castiel’s stare. “Dean. I won’t press the issue. I don’t want anything you don’t feel comfortable giving. If you say ‘no’, I will continue to cherish our friendship.” He squeezes Dean’s hand briefly and lets it go. “I just wanted you to know. That’s all.”
His hand is caught before he can pull it back. Dean’s fingers close painfully tight around his own, as if afraid they’ll vanish from his grip. He starts to say something and has to pause. He clears his throat and tries again.
“It would be nice,” he says slowly, voice barely above a whisper, “to be able to kiss you without needing a reason.”
Castiel feels so light that, for a brief moment, he wonders if his wings have been made whole again. He thinks his entire existence might have culminated in this one moment, the pinnacle of his existence. Surely if he exists for another millennium, he’ll never find another feeling that compares to this one.
Some of his thoughts must show on his face, because Dean’s mouth breaks into a smile, the last lines of tension in his face finally easing away. He rolls his eyes.
“C’mere, you friggin’ sap,” he huffs, tugging on Castiel’s hand to urge him forward over the table.
Technically, it’s their seventh kiss, but Castiel had already sworn to stop counting.