Chapter Text
~ooooOOOoooo~
It wasn’t the aborted Apocalypse that caused it.
It wasn’t the relentless pace building up to it, grinding every hope, every fiber of being, every spark of energy down into the numb ache of exhaustion and despair, that caused it.
It wasn’t even the clean up afterwards, feeling driven to atone for what had been wrought by their Destiny even when the last threshold of endurance had been passed long ago, that did it.
Ultimately, it was the combination of all these and more. Trust shattered and rebuilt in the midst of a war most people didn’t even know was being fought. Passion and vulnerability and insecurity and possessiveness all spiked with healthy doses of desperation and adrenaline. Four people boxed into close quarters and even closer circumstances, all pushing too hard for too long with no rest and even less ability to recognize that their considerable tempers were wearing thinner than spring ice.
Dean and Sam were fighting, snapping at one another out of pure frustration with each other’s obstinacy. The bickering had been going on for nearly an hour straight, and both Castiel and Gabriel had been flatly informed to ‘stay the Hell out of it’ when they tried to intercede. Cas was getting more irritated by the second, his lapis eyes dark and dangerously narrow, his posture beneath the trench coat coiling like a panther about to spring between two dueling elk. The tension in the room was so thick it could be cut with a knife and too many barbs were trading back and forth between the Winchesters. They were at each other’s throats over trivialities, pushing their angels away rather than let them provide a buffer until tempers could cool.
Gabriel had watched one family tear itself apart under the strain of what was Meant To Be. He wasn’t about to do it again.
“Enough!”
One word slamming through the room with the force of a crashing meteor. Even Castiel startled, eyes widening as Dean and Sam both fell silent and turned to focus on the archangel who’d shot to his feet and was bristling with something between exasperation and fury. “Just shut up,” Gabriel snarled. “The both of you.”
“Gabriel…” Sam half turned from Dean, one hand rising to reach for his lover.
“Just…” Gabriel took a deep breath and steadied himself. “Oh, fuck it.”
No one had time to react before Gabriel snapped his fingers.
* * *
Dean stumbled where he landed, dropping onto all fours, hands sinking into the soft… “Sand?”
“We’re on a beach,” Sam replied. Dean glanced up as he righted himself to see Sam sitting a few feet away, stripping off his jacket. “Gabriel?”
“Right here, gorgeous.” The archangel was perched on a nearby dune, watching with some amusement as Castiel’s customarily grave expression shifted into subtle consternation. “You didn’t think I was staying behind, did you?”
“Where are we?” Dean snapped. “What the Hell do you think you’re doing; we were in the middle of-”
“Bitching at each other like a pair of little girls,” Gabriel interrupted. “And if you’d listened to me or Cas for half a minute, we could have told you that the spirit activity was nothing more than some egregore. A little too much excess energy being given form by a few too many people who saw things they’d rather not have. It’s taken care of.”
“Still don’t explain what we’re doing here,” Dean snapped. “Or where ‘here’ is.”
“My own little island getaway,” Gabriel replied expansively, gesturing with one arm. “Picturesque little splotch of sand and sun and green with every amenity you could want. Decided it’d be the perfect place to take a much needed vacation.”
“So you just snapped us along?” Sam blinked at his lover. “Without even talking to us about it first?”
“Eh, you’d’ve argued over the idea for another six months if I’d gone that route.” Gabriel’s expression went from carefree to serious in a half-second. “We’re overdue; more than, really. You two’ve been all-go-no-stop since Dean pulled you outta Stanford. It’s time to take a breather and let other hunters handle things for a while.”
Dean’s face darkened like a gathering storm. “Like Hell. Those poor bastards don’t have half our resources. They’ll get killed tryin’ to do what we do and ain’t nobody resurrecting them.”
“They’re good enough or they’re living on luck,” Gabriel shot back, hopping off the dune and moving into Dean’s space. “Either way, they aren’t your responsibility. They’re their own. You two knuckleheads, for better or worse, are ours, and you’re gonna take a break before you wind up broken. Period.”
“The Hell we are,” Dean snapped. He’d never really had any fear of going toe to toe with the archangel. Not even after they’d found out he was an archangel. “Cas, get us outta here.”
Silence followed the order, undercut by the soft rhythmic rush of water lapping across sand. “No.” Dean turned, incredulous, an almost-betrayed expression on his face. “Gabriel is right, Dean. We have all been moving from one battle to the next for far too long. Even angelic endurance has its limits, and you are both human. It is affecting us all: physically and mentally. It will never be a good time to step away, but it has become a necessity.”
Gabriel grinned. “Even all-work-no-play Castiel agrees. Team Free Will is taking a vacation.”
* * *
When Gabriel talked about amenities, he’d been understating things. Considerably.
The island itself wasn’t overlarge; perhaps a few square miles in all; with sand as white as snow that caught the sun and water almost as blue as Castiel’s eyes stretching as far as the eye could see in any direction. The interior was carpeted with lush green vegetation and dotted with arching canopies of tropical shade trees heavy with fruit. Rope hammocks were cunningly tucked away in secluded corners where hibiscus and amaryllis and flowers neither human could name bloomed in riots of color, with stone pathways stretching from the house and winding throughout.
Gabriel’s home on the island was as large as most of the motels Sam and Dean had ever stayed in over the course of their lives, with columned porticos and gabled balconies and long glass-paneled walls that afforded spectacular panoramic views of the entire island. The rooms were sprawling, open spaces, filled with luxuriantly overstuffed furniture, hardwood floors topped with plush rugs so soft that they felt like clouds. Comfort and elegance suffused the design, with charms or geodes or personal items that Gabriel had either been given or collected over the centuries artfully placed wherever the eye landed.
“Not bad,” Dean murmured, aimless steps carrying him through the great room overlooking the western beach. “I’da thought any place of yours’d be a little…”
“Incoherent?” Sam supplied helpfully. He knew his angel’s mercurial moods and even more eclectic tastes quite well by now.
Gabriel’s lips pouted almost instantly, and the hurt look on his face had Sam immediately by his side, drawing the archangel into an apologetic kiss that erased any traces of it. Gabriel let out a pleased little hum against Sam’s lips, easily wrapping up around Sam’s torso and letting Sam lift him into an even tighter embrace.
“Dude… right here,” Dean reminded his brother acidly.
Sam broke the kiss, thrilling quietly to the way Gabriel’s mouth yearned at his for a moment and refusing to set the archangel down. “Don’t watch if it makes you squeamish, jerk.”
“Bitch.” Dean grinned at his brother, inwardly astonished at the foreign feel of the expression. Even in quiet moments with Cas, there had been preciously little laughter in the last few years for any of them. Maybe Gabriel’s right… maybe some time out would be a good plan… He watched Gabriel wriggle against Sam and Sam’s breath shallow, and fought down a girly sigh of contentment as his fingers reached out to brush Castiel’s. Sam was happy with the minx of an angel, and it did Dean good to see it. He’d worried too often that Sam would never recover from Jessica’s loss on a romantic level. Sexually, his brother had gotten back on the horse, but Sam deserved to have a ‘forever’ with someone, and it looked like Gabriel was fitting the bill nicely.
Not that he’d ever admit it to the Trickster/angel… at least, not in front of witnesses.
“So…” he said, just a shade too loud so as to break the spell his brother and the archangel were weaving on each other. “We’re pretty much here for a while?”
“That’s right, Deano.” Gabriel grinned at him past Sam. “Surf, sand and sex; best vacation there is. Couple things to put out there, and then it’s time to let your hair down.” Gripping Sam’s biceps, he dropped a quick kiss to Sam’s lips, untangled his legs from Sam’s waist and hopped down. “First off, this place is totally human-proofed. Like baby-proofing, but with fewer locks on the cabinetry. There are no poisonous critters or predators or inedible berries. You can walk around buck naked if you want to, swim in the ocean as far out as your arms will take you; no rip tides or undertows or anything that will damage those fragile hides of yours.
“If you’re wandering around and get lost, just yell for me; I’ll be able to hear you anywhere on the island. I’ve got the place wired up, so to speak, so you can go anywhere and do anything you want. Place puts that ‘Room of Requirement’ thing to shame, too, courtesy of my awesome Trickster skills. You wanna go scuba diving? You’ll find the stuff at exactly your specs. Anything you want to eat, just think about it and the ingredient’s’ll be in the kitchen. Want equals have around here.”
“Sounds decadent.” The soft observation from Castiel startled Dean, and it struck him that his angel had been… well, he couldn’t remember a time when Cas had been all that talkative, but taciturn was describing his angel mildly these days. Yeah… we could all use a break.
“That’s the point, bro.” Gabriel’s eyes glowed, his elfin face lit with excitement. “Be naughty; do what feels good. No rules, no missions… just distractions.”
Sam caught the almost furtive hesitation, as if Gabriel wanted to propose something but was reluctant to do so. Holding back wasn’t the angel’s M.O. “Gabriel? Is there something else?”
He hesitated again. It was the first time in centuries… millennia… that Gabriel wanted something he wasn’t sure he could have. Even Sam, in the end, had been a safe enough bet that he’d get somewhere eventually. But this… he couldn’t predict how this would be received, and it was a want that had been niggling around in the back of his mind since he’d realized precisely how close of quarters the Winchester brothers usually lived in. “Just something I thought… but it’s not important. We’re here to have a good time, Sammy; no worries, remember?”
“Just spit it out, man,” Dean grumpled. “I ain’t spending this entire vacation wondering what else you’re plotting.”
One glance at Sam, who was all bright encouraging eyes, and Gabriel went for it. “No rules… no exclusivity. No couples. Just four healthy, sexually active guys having a good time however… with whoever… they want.”
Sam’s jaw was hanging open. Dean stared like Gabriel had just announced he was a demon on every alternating Tuesday. Castiel was the only one who found his voice. “You are suggesting that we ignore our commitments to our mates… that we indulge in sexual congress with no respect for our bonds to one another.”
“I’m suggesting those bonds won’t be weakened or damaged by suspending the norm for a while,” Gabriel retorted stiffly. Castiel wasn’t the one he’d been expecting to get resistance from. “That instead of splitting off and just being couples the entire time we’re here, we take down the fences and see what happens. Nobody does anything they don’t want, but we don’t worry about causing permanent trust issues with our lovers by indulging a spark. We’re in each other’s back pockets damn near 24-7-365, Castiel; you can’t tell me there haven’t been any.”
“None I would acknowledge.” Castiel’s jaw set stubbornly.
It set off alarms in Gabriel’s head. There was more to this, but pushing wouldn’t help. “Okay… but if we take the rings off, so to speak, and Dean did indulge, would you hold it against him?”
It was quiet for too long. Both Winchesters were sitting on the overstuffed sofa, watching the exchange: Dean unsure what reply he wanted Cas to make, Sam trying to ignore the stab of hurt that he shouldn’t have felt when Castiel denied being attracted to anyone but Dean.
Gabriel finally gave ground. “It doesn’t matter; I’d decided not to put it out there, and I shouldn’t have. Don’t give it another thought. C’mon, Sam.” With a snap, Dean and Castiel were alone in the room.
For another moment, they were silent. Dean looked up at Castiel. “So… sex vacation. One of his better ideas, gotta admit.”
“Dean…”
“Oh, c’mere.” Dean stood and pulled Castiel in, sliding the trench from Castiel’s shoulders in a smooth, practiced motion. “Only one here’s me.”
Castiel’s answering groan was lost in Dean’s lips as he wound his fingers into the short waves of Dean’s hair.
By the time they were on the floor, naked and entwined, sunlight streaming warm and golden through the huge windows, Dean had reduced Castiel’s world to the sharp edge of teeth and a nimble slick tongue and the deep flex of lube-wet fingers brushing his prostate and stretching his muscles, the angel’s only thought centered on begging his hunter for more.
Gentle. Even at their fiercest, they made love, an undercurrent of tenderness in their most ferocious abandon. Dean idly wondered what it would take to bring out something more raw, like the angel could be when he fought, when he was angry. To have Castiel take him dirty and hard and fast until Dean was sundered from himself.
Castiel whimpered and Dean slid deep, pushing away thoughts of being taken and wrapping himself in the feel of his angel. Because this was everything: the way his angel arched up into him, muscles clenching greedily as if to pull Dean in and never let him leave. The way the angel’s head fell back, lolling helplessly as pleasure washed through him when Dean sank as far as he could go. The sight of heavy-lidded lapis eyes fluttering open, locking with his own, seeing right up into the hunter’s soul and refusing to look away…
Dean’s hips stuttered as Castiel reached up, drawing him down for a fervent kiss, his cadence becoming almost frantic. Cas clung to him, thighs tight on his waist and heels digging hard as Dean braced and sank deeper, harder, his whole body shaking from the need to get Cas there first… to feel his angel splinter apart around him… his left arm protested when he shifted, Cas strangling on a groan as the angle changed, and the Dean got a hand in and caught Castiel’s erection with almost rough, jerky strokes, not bothering to match rhythm of hand and hips, just needing to see Cas come…
A hoarse shout of Dean’s name and Castiel gave Dean what he wanted, arching and writhing under Dean’s body, every muscle taut and eyes rolled back and breath panting shallow in his throat. Dean barely lasted a stroke before the deep rippling clutch of tight heat finished him off, and he almost let out a sob of relief as he flooded into his lover.
In the beginning, Dean had tried not to collapse into Cas after sex. Other lovers would have found it uncomfortable, or considered it rude, and habits against snuggling died hard. But Cas liked his weight, liked the contact after lovemaking stripped him bare, and Dean privately thrilled at the idea of someone who could take all of him without complaint.
He refused to talk to or about the part of him that could spend the rest of his life nestled with Castiel, soaking up the way the angel’s sleek, naked body fitted so perfectly against the lean planes of his own and the way tiny, chaste little kisses seemed perfectly natural to both of them when they were safe and entwined.
Just the constant strain of day-to-day life had become difficult for everyone on Team Free Will, and physical intimacy, both sexual and merely affectionate, had suffered as a result. They needed to reconnect; all of them.
It made Dean almost wonder just how crazy Gabriel’s outlandish suggestion really was.
Castiel smiled as Dean nuzzled his jaw, hands lingering over Dean’s flushed skin. “Sex vacation,” Castiel rumbled, soft and somehow wondering. “Gabriel has been away from Heaven for a very long time, to think of it.”
“Good idea, though.” Dean shifted, bracing on his forearms to look at Castiel’s face. “You like this… anytime we feel like it… Heaven wasn’t anywhere near this good.” Those lapis eyes narrowed and a disbelieving eyebrow cocked. Dean laughed. “You’re picking up the Trickster’s expressions, angel. You’ll be imitating Sam’s bitchfaces next.” The mention of his brother had those blue eyes darkening, and Dean decided to press his luck. “It’s Sam, isn’t it? The reason you got your feathers ruffled over what Gabriel suggested.”
“I didn’t hear you leaping up to support the idea,” Castiel countered. Dean’s own eyebrow arched and Castiel sighed. “I have no problem with Sam. I believe we established some time ago that casual intercourse is not something I’m suited for, beloved, and what Gabriel suggested seems like the epitome of meaningless sex.”
Nothing was supposed to surprise Dean anymore, least of all about himself. He’d hunted supernatural creatures for nearly twenty years, been part of an ancient Abrahamic prophecy, gone to Heaven and Hell and come back again, fallen into bed with the angel that saved his soul and stopped an Apocalypse.
The surge of fraternal protective anger at Castiel’s statement was so fierce that it shocked Dean to the core. “You’re tellin’ me that after everything we’ve been through… after all the shit we’ve done together and all the times Gabriel or Sam pulled both of our asses outta the fire that they don’t mean anything to you? That you don’t think you and I mean anything to them?”
Dean had backed away, out of the cuddle without realizing it, sitting up and staring angrily at Castiel. The angel sat up, crossing his legs and looking thoroughly confused. “No… but I don’t care for them as I do for you. Don’t most humans consider sex without love meaningless?”
He looked so earnest, so thoroughly confused; Dean could almost forget that sometimes his angel got lost in the complexity of human interaction. The contradictions built into the human heart. He sighed, resigning himself to a chick moment and gathered his thoughts. He was really the worst person possible to have to explain things like this.
“Meaningless sex is… it’s two decently put-together bodies getting sweaty and horizontal for the pure sake of just getting off and nobody’s expecting to see the other again.” He paused for a moment, an afterthought crossing his mind that he privately blamed the archangel for. “Sometimes more than two… but that’s not the point. Point is… if you care about somebody: respect, friendship, any of that… then it can’t really be meaningless. I’ve had a lot of meaningless sex in my life; I know the difference. And do I really have to tell you about how there’s more than one way to love somebody?” Unable to stop, Dean reached out and touched Castiel’s cheek, running his thumb over the kiss-swollen lower lip. “You?”
Castiel leaned into Dean’s touch, smiling ruefully. He hadn’t let himself really acknowledge the closeness he’d come to feel with Sam over the years; the younger Winchester was the beloved of an archangel, and there was a burden of guilt between them that Castiel didn’t feel worthy to be absolved of. Couldn’t tell Dean about, for fear of his beloved’s reaction. It was a chain around his heart, his cross to bear.
But Dean knew him too well, and was more insightful than anyone gave him credit for. “Go talk to Sam,” Dean urged gently. “Whatever’s going on in your head, just get it out and deal with it. You gotta deal with your shit, whether we’re even gonna think about taking Gabriel up on his crazy-assed idea or not. Apocalypse taught me that much.”
A rare, somewhat sardonic smile crossed Castiel’s face at that, and he reached out to brush light fingers down Dean’s cheek. “Does it appeal to you, Dean?”
I hate it when he does that. For a long moment, Dean remained silent. He could still smell Cas on his skin, though the angel had dealt with the residual stickiness almost immediately. He’d found it easier to get Dean to snuggle that way, and Dean had wholeheartedly approved when it became a habit.
He didn’t want to think about sex with someone else… anyone else… when Castiel’s love marks were still fresh and the angel was sitting there so damn tempting and naked. But Cas wanted an answer, and his angel took stubborn to several entirely new levels.
“If it did…” he started slowly. “If I said that there’ve been times when I’ve envied Sammy just a little… when I’ve thought about what you’d look like on your knees for my brother, or Gabriel for you… If I said it might not be such an insane idea and could be kinda fun… would you say yes just because I wanted to do it?”
“No.” Castiel’s eyes were the same bright, piercing blue they’d been when Dean first met him on this plane of reality, when the angel had gazed up and through him and solemnly declared that he knew Dean didn’t believe he’d been worth saving from Hell. “But I would re-examine my opposition to it, if doing it would make you happy.”
Before Dean even realized he was moving, his hand snaked out and slid around Castiel’s neck, yanking him up across Dean’s lap. Their lips slammed together, all teeth and ferocity and open need, until Castiel’s hands fisted in Dean’s hair and he whimpered into Dean’s mouth.
“I love you,” Dean breathed fiercely, warm words against warmer lips. “And I don’t care what you decide. I don’t care what the deal is between you and Sam. I forgave you a long time ago for all the bullshit those dicks in Heaven made you do and all the secrets you kept and all the smiting you dished out that I probably deserved but resented you for anyway. Hell, Cas: I forgave Sammy for Ruby; what wouldn’t I forgive you for? Whatever the deal is with you two, just fix it and don’t worry about what I’ll think. We’ll figure out the rest later.”
Compassion unasked. Grace undeserved. Love unexpected, but without reservation.
This had been worthy dying for. Still was. And Gabriel had been right: nothing could damage that.
“If Sam is as forgiving as you, beloved,” Castiel told his lover slowly, “then perhaps Gabriel’s suggestion would be an… interesting way to spend the time.”
Dean grinned at him. “Then go find out, angel. I’ll be right here.”
A gentle kiss; an endearment in Enochian; and then Castiel was gone from his arms in a flutter of wings, his boxers gone with him but the rest of his clothing still scattered where it had fallen with Dean’s. Dean chuckled softly, gathered their clothes, and then went to find a shower.