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He’s seen the shadows before, but rarely the wings themselves. He’s used to them now, but at first they weren't at all like he imagined they might be: inky sharp pinions as hard and cold as ice. They feel like weapons against Dean’s fingers, and he thinks belatedly that they probably are. He wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of a blow from one of Castiel’s wings, especially with those ice-sharp daggers for feathers.
He can imagine an angelic battle, with those wings not only serving to strike powerful blows, but slicing and cutting like knives at whatever Cas chooses to strike. It is oddly reminiscent of the first time he saw the shadow. He imagined soft feathers, of course, because that’s what he’d expected. Looking back, he can see it in his memory (or perhaps he’s just remembering it wrong, but he doesn't think he could forget the first time he ever met Cas, much less an angel). The outline of limbs he perceived as soft and downy were instead hard and threatening—not to instill comfort, but to inspire fear and speak of unseen power.
As Dean carefully threads his fingers between those chilled feathers, Castiel sighs contentedly against the mattress. His voice has never exactly been restrained. It’s not like anyone has ever told him to stop making so much noise during sex, anyway, and Dean likes Cas’ noises a bit too much to bother teaching him about any kind of human restraint. Now that Cas shows his wings occasionally (suspiciously beginning after he learned that Dean wanted to see them), he really seems to enjoy it. As Dean strokes something warm beneath the feathers, Cas rolls his back into Dean’s gentle touches. Dean can’t help but wonder how exactly it feels. It’s not like he has his own wings to compare, after all.
The pinions begin to soften as Dean continues to run his fingers through them, warming from icy weapons to soft, warm, and supple down. The angel moans softly beneath him as the feathers soften and warm to Dean’s touch, his face burrowed into a pillow. His hands give his otherwise relaxed composure away—the one hand he can see is gripping the pillow so tightly that his knuckles are turning white. So yes, Cas certainly enjoys this too.
It overwhelms Dean in an instant as he takes in the sight and all its implications: He, who has been to Hell and became a monster, nearly a demon—he is called the Righteous Man by this angel, and to this day Castiel repeats the phrase over and over, like a prayer, in Dean’s ear. You are the Righteous Man whose soul I pulled from Hell, and Cas always means it, every time. It seems of little matter that every other creature in and under Heaven may despise him. No, not Cas. These many years later, Dean is still something holy in Castiel's eyes, and the thought makes a noise rise unbidden from his throat as he trails his fingers through feathers that are now warm and soft, for him. Because of him.
Cas is his angel, who would rather linger in a sketchy hotel room with his remaining Grace dirtied and drained than to even attempt to return to Heaven and reclaim his former power and glory. And the fallen Angel of the Lord now gasps mouthfuls of dusty, disgusting air because he wants to, because Dean is here, and has made it clear there’s nowhere else he’d rather go.
Dean lowers his forehead to press between Cas’ shoulder blades, pressing a soft kiss to the skin there, his fingers spreading out to rake through handfuls of feathers. Before, they were sharp daggers, capable of inflicting serious pain and hurt; now, they are soft as pillows.
For a moment, Dean just breathes against the skin of Cas’ back, a stray feather tickling at his cheek. He has no idea why he stays, but he’s so fucking grateful. He tries to think about eternity sometimes, about how old Cas really is in terms he might understand, but he fails to grasp a single stretch of thousands of years. The failure is miserable when the creature beneath him has lived for billions, and Dean knows he’ll never understand time quite like that.
And so it happens that Dean Winchester, merely human and small and ordinary by cosmic terms, strokes his hands through the soft feathers of an angel who was there at the beginning of everything. This amazing angel who has chosen to opt out of the rest of eternity, who came running to this beginning of his end, to fall for what is holy to him. And now lies beneath him, gasping and writhing and did it all because of Dean.
He presses soft kisses against the wings but says nothing, because what is there to say? He’s long since stopped trying to convince Cas that he wasn't worth it, because the idiot is too stupid to leave and go back to Heaven. So Dean vows to do everything he can to make Cas’ choice worth it.
It’s overwhelming if he thinks too hard about it. So instead, he just remembers that Cas is just Cas, and that Dean is just himself, too. Just two people in a hotel room, travelling for work and relaxing at the end of a long day. The fact that one of them just happens to be an angel with gorgeous wings is incidental.