A Distant Mirror

Troy comes on one night while Dean is only half-awake, and he watches it through muzzy eyes and tries to ignore the patch of drool he sluiced out onto Castiel's shoulder while he dozed.

After a while, Castiel clears his throat and makes a half-assed gesture at the flickering images. "That performer resembles your Sean Bean," he notes dryly. "Should I assume this means he dies?"

Still not over Ned Stark then, and Dean can't stop his own snort of disbelief. "Still can't believe they iced Ned fuckin' Stark."

Castiel huffs. "Boromir too."

"Boromir too," Dean agrees. "Jesus. I liked Boromir." He shifts closer, because Castiel is all warm and naked and potential there next to him, this closeness still a novelty, with so much to learn about what it can bring them. Walking hopeful fingers up the rise of Castiel's thigh, he scrapes his teeth over the protective sigil he tattooed under Castiel's collarbone when his friend trudged home after the Naomi shitstorm went down. "I've read the books, he survives," he slurs against smooth, hard skin. "He sails home in The Odyssey. And we should-"

"If they ever tell my story, let them say I walked with giants," Castiel cuts in. "Men rise and fall like the winter wheat, but these names will never die."

It's random as fuck, but Castiel's voice is that crunch of brittle glass that turns Dean's blood from pleasantly warm to simmering hot inside the two seconds it takes for the angel to get to the end of the sentence, and then there is a beat of silence so convenient Dean wonders if he might see Brad Pitt staring out of the television with a hand behind his ear as he waits for Dean's reply.

"Please tell me that was foreplay," he manages finally, and he knows his own voice is a little breathless.

"Let them say, I lived in the time of Hector, tamer of horses," Castiel rumbles back, maybe a little thoughtful as he regards Dean. "Let them say, I lived in the time of Achilles, beloved of Zeus."

Dean squeezes a drop of saliva from somewhere. "That was foreplay, right?"

Castiel gives a little eyeroll. "Sing, oh goddess, the rage of Achilles, son of Peleus," he breathes out, "that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans..."

Dean didn't even notice through the aggressive twitch of his cock as every red blood cell in his top half puts his vital organs on hold and sprints to the basement, but Castiel is still speaking, dipping his head and teasing Dean's lips with the words.

"There were hundreds of them, Dean, thousands... the night lit up with watchfires stretching back across the plains of Scamander, so far and so brilliant that I thought them stars." He kisses his way along the line of Dean's jaw, his hand gentle at Dean's cheek, like it always is now. "The days were golden and still as we waited, the sky blue and endless... and then at once smoke-black and loud with cries and the clash of blades on bronze as we cut, and thrust, and battled hard for glory, Dean, for the god of war is merciless and deals out death to the men who deal out death, no matter if their war is righteous."

"Fuck, you were there," Dean grunts out to the rough tickle of Castiel's stubble on his neck, as his friend licks a damp trail down his throat.

"We raided, we plundered, we laid siege to Troy," Castiel confirms in a murmur, pushing up the soft, worn cotton of Dean's tee so he can move lower down, to swipe his tongue across Dean's nipple. "We fought them on the ramparts, and drenched the city walls with them; we fought them down into the dirt, until the plains ran red with blood and the river was choked with corpses; we fought them into the sea and set their ships to flames of holy fire... we craved the slaughter, and turned them to carrion for the crows and dogs to feast on."