Work Text:
Castiel is fascinated by Dean's skin. Or maybe just by the fact that he's been given permission to touch it whenever he wants.
Though he still seems so uncertain, cautious where he presses his fingers, where he lays a hand, as if Dean is some new and strange thing that he wants, but isn't entirely sure how to please.
It's sort of flattering, but it leaves Dean feeling oddly raw at the same time.
He's currently stretched out on the motel bed, head pillowed on his arms, paying barely any attention to the television while Castiel explores the naked planes of his back with two fingers.
It's a sensation that's balanced so precariously between soothing and arousing that time drips away without him being aware of it.
"I was only ever supposed to watch you," Castiel says quietly. "To guide you, nothing more."
Dean turns his head on the pillow, finds Castiel's face, creased in a frown, though still intent upon his bare skin.
His fingers, curving round the flat length of Dean's shoulder, tremble ever so faintly, and slow their path upwards.
"This is wrong."
Dean tenses under his touch.
"This isn't something I can-"
"Cas, don't," he says roughly, and however relaxed he was before he's now taut as wire. Shaking his head and painting over the words with harder ones of his own. "Don't, we promised we wouldn't think about whether it was wrong. I know what you are, and I know what I am-"
"That's not what I meant," Castiel protests, hand briefly spreading on Dean's back, like it wants to touch all of him at once. There's tension in his voice now, something soft and uncertain which might have been pain. "You're so brief and so fragile like this, skin and bones and breath, like the barest touch will shatter you into pieces."
Castiel's hand presses, just barely, against the warmth of Dean's back, and he takes a breath, a long drag of air which sounds disturbingly human.
"Sometimes I want to touch you so much I'm afraid you'll burn under my hands," he admits, soft and ragged under his breath like it's a secret, a secret he's ashamed of. There's a neediness there, an ache that's almost frightened, but it covers something harder, something less easy to define
Dean rolls enough that he can catch the fingers trailing his bare shoulder and he doesn't let them go, even when Castiel tries to reclaim them. Because this- this is new, this is sharp and desperate and honest. Dean drags himself upright, hand slipping open to find the slender bones of Castiel's hand, the delicate softness of his wrist.
"You burned me once already," he reminds him and Castiel's eyes stray, slow but pointed, to the hand print on his shoulder.
"It's not the same, I had a reason then, a mission, you weren't-" Castiel stops, but Dean thinks maybe he knows how that wants to end.
"I wasn't yours," Dean finishes quietly.
Castiel looks away, like he's been caught thinking something terrible.