Dean woke later than usual, the way you do when your dreams are too good and happy to leave. There was a childlike kind of excitement underneath, and for a moment or two, drifting between sleeping and waking, he couldn’t quite remember why.
But the blanket draped over his body was far too heavy, pressing him into the mattress. And there was a bony knee shoved between his calves, and the tickle of breath against his ear, and a hand wrapped around his arm. And if he moved his head just so, there was the scrape of stubble against his cheek.
Somewhere during the night, Castiel had gone from blanketing Dean with one wing to mostly lying on top of him. He usually did.
A year and a half into marriage and Dean still wasn’t over his sheer, stupid delight at the fact that they had usuallys now.
He lay there for a bit, just because there were so many things he could do, or say, or touch, or watch, and just thinking about them all and listening to Castiel’s quiet snuffling breaths was better than doing any of them anyway.
Somewhere outside the shuttered window a crow was complaining. Beyond that, a couple of dogs snarling and sparring; a few human shouts here and there, the occasional cockcrow or bellow of a family cow. Morning, and everybody was waking up. Dean had repairs to help with today, a barn and two haycrofts damaged by the latest storm. And there’d probably be a few animals bogged down in the ditches, or ewes who’d gone and decided that it was early enough in the spring to pop a few lambs. You could always make yourself useful down on the farms this time of year—almost any time of year, really—and Castiel would like it, tramping around at Dean’s side, quietly doing what needed doing with his hands and coaxing weak baby things to stay in the world.
Today would be a good day.
He pushed at Castiel until the angel grumbled and clutched him tighter.
“Gotta piss, man,” Dean complained.
Castiel buried his face in Dean’s neck, so Dean bit his ear and ran a thumb over his hip and shoved him off. Castiel grabbed a pillow instead, and glared at him with one eye over the curve of it.
Dean hopped out of bed, and tweaked a big black secondary.
“I’m going back to sleep,” Castiel threatened in a vague sort of mumble.
Dean put a hand on his back, right down at the end of the spine where it started to curve up again into what was just hidden by the sheet. Then he ran the hand up Castiel’s back, light as a whisper, and traced that delicate muscle just behind the shoulder that always got him going.
He leaned in very close, so that Castiel would be able to feel the breath stirring his hair, and whispered, “Liar.”
Castiel’s stillness took on quite a different quality.
Dean laughed, and ruffled his hair, and grabbed his pants and a cloak, and breezed out through the house, collecting Chevy on his way. He pissed on the garden by the side of the house, waved at Missouri as she went by, and left Chevy outside to trot off and do her thing when he went back inside to make breakfast.
Chunks of bread and cheese, a couple of apples, fresh cream that somebody had left at his doorstep—probably Abby—a little pot of honey and a jug of water. Nothing fancy, but then, he didn’t expect either of them to be paying much attention to the food.
Castiel hadn’t moved, and he didn’t lift his head when Dean came in, but he wasn’t asleep. Dean could almost feel him listening, the precise weight of angelic attention that he sometimes felt even when he was all alone, and knew that his husband was checking up on him. He changed his stride to a creep, an exaggerated sort of silent stalking, and hummed a little hunting song as he slid the tray cautiously onto the bedside table.
Castiel made a small, amused noise in his throat.
Dean clambered onto the bed and flopped down on top of him without any subtlety at all, tucking his hands under the pillow to find Castiel’s and squeezing.
“Hi,” he said brightly, and nuzzled his neck.
“And what do you mean to do with me,” Castiel enquired gravely, “now that you’ve caught me.”
Dean snorted, and nipped his shoulder. “Think of a few things. Could feed you, though. Bet you didn’t actually remember to eat, flying all night and all.”
Castiel wriggled underneath him, just a testing of his weight, and the wings on either side lifted a little until Dean was halfway cradled between them.
“You’re not making a very good case for breakfast, Dean.”
“Who said it’s either/or?” he pointed out, absently, between relearning the taste of the line down the side of his husband’s neck. “I could, you know. Sit on your dick and feed you crumbs between bounces.”
Castiel hardly ever laughed aloud, just like he hardly ever pronounced question marks. It was just him, just the way Dean’s weird badass dopey awesome husband worked. But sometimes if you startled him into it he did this thing where he blinked a bit and looked down and his eyes crinkled up all the way and he made a sort of huff that sounded like a cough. And sometimes he’d shake his head after, like you were a lost cause, or look at you like a revelation. Dean treasured it, every time.
He had to sit up, because Castiel insisted on rolling over, and that was tricky with wings. When they’d got themselves sorted he was sitting on Castiel’s thighs and Castiel was looking up at him with his hands framing Dean’s face and his eyes sparkling, and he was shaking his head and saying, “Dean. I missed you.”
So Dean had to kiss him, of course.
It was a long time before they got around to breakfast.
It was even longer before they got around to actual sex. But Dean was okay with that.
