Cas has never really been one for polite sentiments. Even so, his lack of reaction causes an ache to momentarily seize at Dean's throat.

"Dean," the angel says, "What is this?" He looks at the object in his hands with a carefully blank expression.

Dean swallows, and when he finally speaks his voice is thick. "It's a car key."

"I know that it is a vehicle key," says Cas, entirely without inflection. "Why have you given it to me?"

He can feel a flush riding his neck all the way up to his cheeks, and curses the moment of sentimental idiocy that brought them to this moment. Of course Cas doesn't want a car. Doesn't even matter if it is a 1965 baby blue Mustang convertible. Doesn't matter if it matches Cas's eyes so perfectly it makes his breath hitch in his throat. Doesn't matter that he can imagine wind tossing Castiel's dark hair with a long, dry expanse of road in front of them and the smell of melting asphalt heavy in their nostrils.

Angels don't need cars. He knows this. Of course he knows this.

Castiel is still holding the keys, cautiously, as though he is afraid of what they mean.

"Sorry," Dean mutters. "Sorry. Here, give them to me. I'll… I'll take it back." He snatches the keys from Cas's hands. The angel's mouth opens briefly, but then he snaps his lips shut, seeming to think better of whatever he had been about to say. Dean, heat still prickling at his face, turns abruptly and retreats into the motel, where Sammy is watching some kind of nature documentary.

"David Attenborough, man," his brother is saying dreamily.

The Mustang is in a lot a few blocks away, where Cas wouldn't see it before Dean was ready. Dean slams the keys on the table, contemplating how long it will take him to sell the car. A few days? He and Sam can't stay here long – Sam is pretty sure there's a Wendigo a few states over and they can't afford the gas it would take to caravan.

"Dean."

His head snaps up, his brows pulling together in frustration. "What," he grinds, the word less of question and more of a warning.

"Look at these lemurs, dude. They're from Madagascar and they can –"

Dean tunes him out and stalks towards the minibar for something to dull the raw sting of Castiel's rejection. After imbibing one (large) bottle of something amber and relegating all thoughts of a certain servant of God to the corner of his mind labeled "repress enthusiastically," he suddenly finds Sam's lemurs much more entertaining.

Sam doesn't mention the car until the next day, and when he does his tone is almost pitying.

"So Cas didn't pick up the 'stang, then?"

Hurt flares unbidden in Dean's chest. "He didn't see the car," Dean replies flatly. "He didn't want to."

His younger brother looks perplexed and seems about to say something, but Dean breaks him off. "I don't want to fucking hear about it."

"Okay, but –"

"He's a goddamn angel, Sammy, he doesn't need a goddamn car. It was a stupid idea."

"I didn't think it was stupid," Sam says softly, but Dean is too busy rummaging in the minibar again.

"Turn on the laptop, will you?" Dean says with his head behind the fridge door. "Need to post an add for the Mustang."

Sam, always obliging, does as he is asked.

"What about the Wendigo?" he asks while the laptop is whirring to life. "The Trout River Sentinel reported another violent death today. That makes six in two weeks."

"As soon as I sell the car we can go," Dean says, finally emerging. "You want a beer? They've got some kind of… fancy girly kind."

Sam rolls his eyes and begins tapping away at the keyboard, looking like a big-ass spider hunched over the computer with his giant hands and hunched spine. "We could call Cas. Ask him to handle it."

"No." Dean's response is immediate and carries a note of alarm. "No, don't bother him. He has… angel stuff to do."

"You have to talk to him sometime."

"Not today," he replies firmly, and shuts himself in the bathroom.

Although a lifetime of frequenting motels has taught him not to be squeamish, this one's bathroom is a concerning shade that rests somewhere between green and yellow and features some inspired penis artwork etched into the wall tile. So when Castiel appears behind him in the mirror, Dean's curse of surprise is laced with both disgust and shock. Shock because, well, he hasn't quite gotten over the fact that Cas can materialize in his motel bathroom during the time it takes for him to shrug his shirt off, and disgust because Cas is far too beautiful for this place.

"Hello, Dean," Cas says in the same toneless voice he used yesterday.

Dean realizes his hands are shaking and grips the counter, abruptly turning his stare towards the sink and instantly regretting the choice when he notices a roach twitching under the drain.

"You can't just do, that, Cas," he bites out. He can feel the angel's breath on his neck, and is surprised for one dizzy moment by how warm it is.

"I do not know to what you are referring, Dean," Castiel says earnestly.

"You can't ambush a guy when he's about to take a shower, man."

Cas looks puzzled. "I do not intend to attack you."

Dean removes his attention from the struggling roach long enough to give the other man – no, angel – an incredulous look. "I—never mind. Look, I'm about to shower. Can it wait?"

Cas nods. "I will wait, yes." The angel steps delicately over Dean's discarded shirt, lowers the toilet seat, and sits.

Dean swallows.

"Yes?" The innocence in Cas's inquiry is so profound that Dean almost laughs.

"I have to get naked, okay? Leave."

"I have seen you in your natural form many times, Dean Winchester," the angel says, a smile quirking at his lips.

Those plush, soft lips.

"You… what?" Dean's voice rises an octave, and he blinks stupidly. Cas makes him feel so helplessly impotent, like a blundering fool. Of course Castiel has seen him naked – he is Dean's guardian, after all, and humans are notoriously handicapped when it comes to slippery bathroom surfaces. And of course Cas finds his insecurity at the notion amusing—to angels, those sexless, perfect beings, nudity of the human form is meaningless. Modesty is a futility.

"I can remove myself if my presence disturbs you."

"No," Dean says, forcing coolness in his tone. "No, you're right. Nothing you haven't seen, right?" His soreness at having been rebuked so thoroughly the day before is still fresh, and the discomfort he would normally feel at being exposed before Cas now manifests itself in a desire to remain as aloof as possible. If that means forgoing privacy to avoid looking the naïve idiot, so be it. He pushes his pants and boxers down and tosses them in the same corner as the shirt.

He can feel Castiel's eyes on him, but cannot bear to see what he knows is a clinical gaze raking impersonally over his body.

A body that does not see Cas with the same…medical objectivity with which the angel regards his.

As he steps into the shower and draws the curtain, Dean immediately turns the water on cold, redirecting his mind to thoughts not concerning the fact that Cas is just feet away from his wet, naked form.

"So," he says, tipping his face up to the feeble stream of water, "What is it that you wanted to say to me?"

"I… wanted to apologize."

To his intense chagrin, there is a suggestion of shame in Castiel's voice. No, no. This is the last thing he wanted from his angel. Anything but shame. It's Dean's fault. The car was a stupid, stupid idea.

"No," Dean says, but can't think of any other words to appropriately convey his emotions. Shampoo drips into his eyes and he blinks rapidly, chasing away the burn.

"Please, let me finish."

Shivering, Dean warily kneads more shampoo in his hair, waiting for Cas to go on.

"I did not understand your intentions," Castiel says softly, and Dean hears him get up from the toilet seat. "I did not realize that you were attempting to give me a…gift."

Dean groans. "Sam called you, didn't he?"

The angel's silence on the other side of the curtain is vast.

"That little bitch…" Dean has lost command of his aloofness, and suddenly feels an overwhelming sense of helplessness.

"Do not blame your brother. If I had known, Dean, I would have gladly accepted your offer."

Dean remains silent, skulking mutely behind the paisley-patterned curtain.

"Dean?"

He says nothing and reaches for particularly suspect bar of soap. Before he is done considering the chances of contracting a venereal disease from the bar soap but after he has decided not to use it, Cas tears back the curtain with a great deal of force, still fully ensconced in a trench coat.

"What the FUCK—" Dean starts violently and slips, losing his balance and plummeting gracelessly to the floor of the shower.

Mostly.

Somehow Cas is able appear behind him and breaks the impact of his head against the stone. Dean isn't sure how. All he's sure of is that his ass will be bruising by tonight and that Castiel's hands are cradling his skull. That, and he's still naked.

There is another moment of stunned quiet before Cas speaks.

"I am sorry, Dean. You did not answer me."

The showerhead is still on, and Castiel's trench coat is soaked.

"Cas—" Dean pauses and shifts, a pain shooting through his tailbone. "What the hell, man." He finds he cannot get up.

Castiel looks vaguely guilty for a moment, but the expression doesn't sit well on his face, and is replaced by his characteristic inscrutable mask in short order. The angel does, however, help pull Dean up, and when he is fully vertical again he realizes Cas's body is flush against his own. Not only that—there's something in Castiel's eyes, something foreign and wild and dark.

A liquid warmth pools low in his gut.

"Dean, I want the car."

"It's gone," he lies.

Castiel backs him up so rapidly against the slick wall of the shower that he almost loses his balance again, but the angel's grip on his forearms is so tight that he remains upright. Cas's face is centimeters from his own, so close that he can see moisture beading above the other man's upper lip.

"I know you still have it," Cas whispers, his breath playing over Dean's face, tickling his neck. For a moment Dean could swear the way Cas is pressing his hips into Dean's is not just to pin him to the wall until he gets what he wants.

But angels—angels don't have these feelings, the ones that are making Dean's cock strain against Castiel's upper thigh, the ones that are flushing his face with so much heat that he can barely whisper no against Cas's collarbone, the ones that are begging him to taste Cas, to slide his hands between the angel's taut stomach and that soaked shirt plastered to his chest…

Shit, shit. Shit. This has to be blasphemy.

His eyes are caught again by Castiel's molten gaze and it's all he can do not to buck his hips against the angel's.

Maybe this is worth going back to hell for.

"Don't lie to me." Castiel's voice holds an authority that dazes Dean into a frenzy of arousal, the angelic strains lacing the command more alcoholic than whatever Dean drank himself to sleep with last night. "I can tell when you're lying, Dean Winchester."

The heat of the angel's body, almost feverous beneath his shirt, scorches Dean's skin and brings a ripple of matching heat to the surface of his face. Castiel's tie is more askew than usual, and his expression has lost its trademark dispassion. Instead there is something hungry there, something that makes Cas's fine features look dangerous, his eyes over-bright. Though Cas is shorter than him, Dean is briefly chilled by the rawness of the power knotted in the man's muscles. Dean may be a Hunter, but Cas will always hold the upper hand.

Dean swallows drily, and he can feel Castiel's eyes watching his Adam's apple bob, his lips almost brushing Dean's throat. He doesn't want Cas to move—he loves the taut pressure of the angel's body against his own, loves that he can see the tiny gold flecks in Castiel's otherwise shock-blue eyes—but he is not stupid enough to defy a celestial being. Especially this one.

"I'll take you to it tomorrow morning," Dean finally says. "Sammy and I have research to do tonight. There's a Wendigo…"

Castiel immediately steps back. Dean releases an unconscious gasp at the sudden coldness of it all, and misses Cas's small smile.

"Tomorrow," Castiel says. "I'll be waiting for you tomorrow."

And then, with a faint whoosh, he is gone.

Dean remains under the stream of water for a second more before turning it off and stepping out of the shower. When he sees his reflection in the mirror, he turns away quickly, embarrassed. His eyes are nearly black with desire and there's a high color playing across his cheekbones.

When he finally emerges from the bathroom Sammy is staring at him, an accusatory gleam in his eyes.

"Everything alright in there?"

Dean nods.

"Because I thought I heard—"

"Don't," Dean snarls. The smell of Cas lingers in his nostrils, thick and spicy, like something from the desert, or molasses, or…

"—dumped her body in the lake. Hey, are you even paying attention to me over there?"

No, I'm having sacrilegious fantasies again, Sammy. What do you want from me?

But instead he says, "Sounds like it's hiding in one of the caves on the north side, then. I'll check the Trout River Tribune again. Why don't you go out and get us some dinner?"

Still eying him with suspicion, Sam turns off Secrets of the Sahara and checks his wallet. "Fine," he says, and opens the motel door.

"Apple pie if they've got it, chocolate if they don't," Dean calls after him, and Sam rolls his eyes.

"Apple, Sammy. Don't forget."

Dean doesn't want to sleep that night. He's afraid he'll hate himself for what his mind conjures up. The dreams are never particularly original – Cas gasping and writhing and arching beneath him, needy in a way the real Castiel never would be. Cas tugging his fingers along Dean's back, Cas groaning his name in that low rasp...

They are just dreams, though, and simply imagining what Castiel would think if he knew what Dean wanted to do to him is enough to make Dean want to stay awake forever.

Instead, he drowns himself in black coffee and stares at the computer until he sees pixels behind his eyelids. If his instincts are correct, it looks like the Wendigo will strike again in three days. Running through the math, he figures that if they leave in the morning they'll reach Trout River in time to find and apprehend the monster before its next kill.

Despite his efforts, exhaustion eventually consumes him, and Dean can feel himself slipping into unconsciousness. The sleep is deep and heavy; if he dreams, he does not remember doing so.

But when he wakes, the handprint on his shoulder is burning.

Sam watches Dean blearily in the cool morning light, stretched out like a cat across his bed.

Dean looks up from the morning news, which he has been reading at a leisurely pace. "Look man," he starts, "if you've got something to say, say it."

Wearing his trademark "how dare you" bitchface, Sam begins to protest.

"No," Dean cuts him off. "You've been looking at me like that all morning. What?"

The bitchface is immediately replaced by an expression of resignation, and Dean rolls his eyes.

"Well, it's just that you told Cas you'd meet him this morning, didn't you?"

Dean looks at him sharply, folding the obituaries into his pocket. "How did you know that?"

Looking appropriately guilty, Sam says, "Well, Cas… he called earlier, when you were still sleeping."

That slimy, fucking khaki-wearing, socially inept piece of angel trash. Wouldn't understand the concept of personal business if it fucked him up the ass. No, Dean, don't think about that. Bad analogy. Bad, bad, bad…

"And?"

Sam's voice has a whiny edge to it. "Well, you're going, aren't you?"

Dean pauses, because honestly, he hasn't decided. He's still pissed at the way the angel brushed him off the day before, and even more pissed by the fact that all it took was Castiel in a wet trench coat to melt him like butter. "I don't know, Sam," he says finally. "He doesn't even want the thing—only asked for it because he's under the impression he hurt my goddamned feelings, thanks to you. "

"Didn't he, though?" Sam retorts.

"It was expensive. And he's not even going to use the thing, so I might as well—"

"Dean," Sam interjects softly, "Go find him."

And God help him, Dean doesn't have a choice when his brother makes that stupid face. So he rolls out of bed, mumbling things under his breath that make Sam blush, and leaves the motel room in a gust of righteous annoyance.

It doesn't take long to find his angel. Castiel is leaning easily against the Impala, his ankles crossed. There's a long, thin mark across his temple that wasn't there the night before, pink and already almost healed.

Dean gestures at it as he approaches. "Where'd you get that one?"

"Wendigo," Cas says, like it's nothing.

Anger clutches deep in Dean's stomach. "Wendigo?" he says quietly. "Not my Wendigo, I'm sure."

Cas gives him a long-suffering look, an I can't believe I raised this dumbass from perdition kind of look. "Yes, Dean. I slayed the Wendigo you intended to hunt." Then his forehead creases. "I thought you would be pleased," he says softly.

"You stole our hunt," Dean snarls, a peculiar feeling knotting in his gut. Still outrage, yes, but something else, something that stirs at the confusion on Castiel's face and the honesty in his eyes.

Castiel lowers his head gracefully. "I am sorry. I did not think…." He pauses, and once again seems to bite back words. "Perhaps it would be better if you showed me the car now."

Yes, Dean thinks venomously, let's get this over with, shall we? After all, he has to get back and research a new case now, since apparently the Wendigo is a no go.

The whole way to the lot Castiel trails Dean too closely, stepping on his heels at one point. Part of Dean hates how much he loves the sound of the angel's regular breathing trailing behind him, and part of him wants to slam Cas up against a wall and—

"We're here," he says flatly, and there she is, still bluer than the sky and shinier than a kid's eyes on Christmas morning.

Castiel cocks his head at the car, still standing a distance away from it, and Dean feels sick, because he can practically hear the silence in the angel's head, the emptiness, the complete lack of reaction.

But then Castiel's lips part, and his voice comes out even rougher than usual.

"Dean, she's beautiful."

Dean blinks and watches in bewilderment as Cas circles the car slowly, drifting his fingers over the chrome and ghosting over the tan leather. The touches look almost intimate, gentle in a way Dean has never known Cas to be. Then Cas looks up at him, and Dean shudders under the intensity of his gaze. "I have always admired the ingenuity of humanity," he says. "That even with your weakness and small minds, you managed to create perfect things." He smiles beatifically. "Creation is… something angels have never grasped. Our Father truly forged you in His image."

"I knew you had a thing for cars," Dean said in response. That this seems to be true is a bonus—he can't tell Castiel the real reasons he bought the Mustang.

"Show me," Cas says suddenly, eyes still fixed on Dean.

"Show you what?"

"How to… make it go."

Dean laughs at the crude phrasing, at the fact that this powerful entity doesn't know how to drive but can navigate the corridors of Heaven and Hell. Together, they slide into the front, Cas behind the wheel for once. He looks good there, Dean thinks, and suffocates the desire to run a hand through Castiel's dark hair and pull him in until he can taste the salt on the angel's skin and dip his tongue in the hollows of his collarbone.

"I want to turn it on."

Dean hands him the keys, and can't help smiling as he fumbles sliding them into the ignition, brow furrowed. He's still pissed—irritation coils under his skin, burning, burning—but now it's muddled with the same affection that drove him to buy the damn car in the first place.

Castiel finally figures it out, because the engine purrs to life and AC/DC screams out of the stereo. Cas winces, and Dean snorts with amusement as his hand jumps to find the volume knob. But Cas is searching for it too, curious bastard, and their fingers touch. It's only a brush, a tingle of skin on skin, but Dean's fingers instinctively curl to lace between Castiel's before he jerks his hand back like he's been burned.

"Sorry," Dean mumbles, flushing deeply.

Cas only looks at him, the pleasure at exploring his gift draining into that familiar incomprehensible emptiness. Emptiness and another presence, one he doesn't recognize. Dean's stomach plummets.

"Sorry," he says again.

Something foreign burns low in the angel's stare, something dark and strange. "No," Cas says harshly, and Dean almost flinches.

"No?"

"Stop being sorry," Cas breathes, and suddenly the angel is reaching for him, the darkness consuming his gaze.

This is it, Dean thinks. He's going to smite me. Only Castiel doesn't smite him. The hand fists itself in the hair at the nape of his neck and yanks his throat back, exposing the long, pale column, and Cas is pushing him hard against the passenger door. He grunts and barely has time to register the presence of the angel's body atop his before his mouth finally tastes Castiel's. Moaning, Dean clasps one hand at Castiel's hip and one on the back of his head, forcing the angel's lips hard down against his own, nipping at that velvet lower lip, sliding a tongue into Cas's mouth. Cas opens for Dean so easily, and God he's warm and tastes like spice and sun and the fucking sounds he's making cause a lazy shudder to slink through Dean's whole body.

Cas must like that, because he growls a little against Dean's lips and bucks his slender hips. Even beneath all that khaki Dean can feel the corded muscle of Castiel's body pressing tautly into him, and fuck, he wants nothing more than to dig into that smooth skin and lose himself in all of Cas's smooth lines.

Even though his thoughts are steeped in desire and he can barely form words without simultaneously emitting sinful moans, he has to ask.

"Cas—" The utterance comes out desperate and thick with lust.

Castiel's mouth has discovered a spot along Dean's jawline that makes him feel like his brain has been submerged in syrup. "Yes, Dean?"

Fuck, that voice, and the way it scrapes over his skin, leaving him even rawer to Cas's touch. He has trouble remembering what he was going to say.

"Please tell me this isn't just—" He gasps when Cas nips at his throat, dragging his teeth softly over Dean's neck and tonguing the track his bites trace. "Please tell me this isn't just to make up for… hurting my feelings or some shit like that."

Cas glances up at Dean's desire-glazed eyes for only a moment, and when he does the hunger in Castiel's eyes stuns the breath out of his chest. It's like the intensity that lurks beneath every movement the angel makes has manifested itself in the dark burn of that look.

"It isn't," he says simply. Relief consumes Dean. "But," Cas adds, and there's an edge of humor to his voice, "you can consider this your thank you for the car."

His long, pale fingers slip into Dean's waistband, and then they're at his belt buckle, and before Dean can fully consider what the heavenly repercussions might be for allowing an angel to blow him, Castiel is stroking the length of his cock, thumbing the tip until Dean is slick and so fucking ready that his legs are trembling.

"Please," he manages, biting his lip, already swollen from Castiel's earlier ministrations.

Cas is smirking, that bastard, and the way he looks between Dean's legs, hair tangled by Dean's fingers, a hickey already forming on his throat, mouth parted slightly, makes him groan.

Then there's warmth, and wetness, and Castiel's lips are moving slowly up and down the length of his dick. That's when Dean realizes he won't be able to hold on much longer, but hey, he's not complaining. At some point, Cas lost his shirt, and the smoothness of his skin against Dean's inner thighs makes him shudder, then convulse when Cas does something incredibly creative with his tongue.

"Cas, I'm going to come," he grits between his teeth, hands moving down to fist in Cas's hair again.

"Good," Cas murmurs, and when he sucks even harder Dean begins pump his hips against Cas's mouth, losing his rhythm when his climax begins. A long, hard tremor jolts through his body, and for an interminable amount of time all he can see is white and the only sensation that can touch him is ecstasy.

By the time his vision blurs back in and he can feel Cas chuckling against his skin, he feels like he's been hollowed out with pleasure.

Cas sits back languidly, still shirtless, observing Dean's boneless stupor. "Was it good?" he inquires, sounding genuinely curious. "I have observed humans pleasuring each other before, but I have never engaged in such an act of intimacy myself." He tilts his head a little, his features softening. "I wanted it to be good for you."

Dean takes a second to gather his thoughts into coherency. "Cas—fuck, yes. It was good. It was…the best, actually." It didn't take him long to arrive at this conclusion. The angel is gifted.

Cas smiles, a little shyly, which is amusing, considering. "Dean, I really do like the car."

"Good," Dean grunts. "It matches your eyes."

And God, does it.