Hands, Eyes, Hearts - A Collection of Supernatural Drabbles

10 // Castiel + Dean

._. I got yelled at for #9, so. Here's this. No feels that can't be solved with fluff and smexy times!

Warning: This fic contains M/M and graphic sexual situations. Do not read this part if you do not want to see that.

If you do, well. Have fun with it. This one goes further than the Sastiel. I took a little liberty with the layout of the bunker bathroom, since from the look of Meta Fiction caps, there aren't any stalls. Stalls made this easier. For any of you who care (and I love you for it, I do) this is set in an alternate season 9 wherein when Cas got back to the bunker, he got to stay.

Castiel blinks awake. Sleep comes easier now, but the grogginess when he transitions back to consciousness is yet another part of being mortal that he could do without.

It does help that the bed he's in is very comfortable — that he's in a bed. In a room, one that he doesn't have to share with anyone. This bunker that the Winchesters found has so many rooms, and Dean was vague when he waved down the hall and said, with his other hand rubbing at the back of his neck, that Castiel should pick one. Dean's room is on this hallway. Sam's is around the corner. Even with permanence, and the new issues that have arisen, the brothers never stray far from one another.

Castiel chose a room from the three between theirs. He feels safer for it.

There's nothing on his walls yet to study, so he traces the shadows across his ceiling, gradually coming more and more awake. There's a sliver of light cast from beneath his door, and it ripples when (judging from the direction of movement) Sam leaves his room. Dean is probably already in the kitchen, cooking.

Castiel never knew that Dean liked to cook, probably because there was never any opportunity for this information to surface. The only kitchen he'd ever seen Dean near was in the old house, where Bobby lived, and while there are memories of drink and unrest and slamming Dean up against the sink, there are none of food. Castiel had no need of food then, and barely any concept of it.

His mind derails into sinful, covetous thoughts of cheeseburgers. Could he ask Dean to make those—?

Lying there unmoving, he starts to feel restless and grungy in the clothes he wore for sleeping. Dean explained to him that this is normal, "nature's way of telling you it's time for a shower," and then Dean went on to say that the inventions that sent hot water through the building at such pressure were "just fucking awesome".

Castiel would have to agree. In fact, he finds that he is looking forward to his next shower.

Swinging his cumbersome legs out of the bed — moving was never such an issue, like most things, when he had his grace — he pads barefoot down the hall to the communal bathroom.

It's silent. Neither Winchester is there — they're probably eating breakfast. Castiel's stomach gurgles, reminding him that breakfast is now one more thing he can't live without. He pulls off his clothes, still warm and smelling of his body, and drops them by the door. As he passes the row of mirrors, he sees his skin ripple past, all pale and tattooed. Older. Hardened by experience. So different from the way it looked when Jimmy Novak first said, "Yes."

Castiel promised the man he wouldn't age. He promised so many things. Those promises weigh upon the shoulders that have been his alone to inhabit for some years now, because even though Jimmy is at peace... he deserved better; from the world, and from Castiel.

Briefly, Castiel wonders whether this propensity for guilt is a generic human condition, or if he learned it somewhere along the way. It's a buzz in his mind, a stone atop his heart. It aches.