Title: Salvation (Was Just a Passing Thought)

Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Word Count: 2,188
Fandom/Pairing: SPN, Dean/Castiel
Notes: Fifth and most likely final part of the first series I have written in forever; will make more sense if you read the other parts first. Possible blasphemy, beware.
Summary: The thing about Castiel is that, though his faith, once won, is incomparable and irreversible, he's kind of like a brick wall.

The thing about Castiel is that, though his faith, once won, is incomparable and irreversible, he's kind of like a brick wall.

He's not stupid, he just doesn't understand things on instinct or thoughtless obedience, and he doesn't really accept things until he understands them. He has a scientist's fanatic need to take things apart and study each piece until he understands, and rebuild very, very slowly, with the goal of grasping the precise mechanics used to create (and this is meant both metaphorically and literally, because Castiel can tilt his head to the side and peer into Dean Winchester's soul and study each new piece like a medical student with a corpse, but it is still remembered that, once, on a stakeout with Remiel and Hadiel, he got bored and used his vessel's hands and a screwdriver to take a toaster apart because he wanted to know what made the bread jump up).

This, in the end, is why it was comparatively easy for Castiel to leave heaven's army. His faith is unshaken, his faith in God, that is, but he never did understand the chain of command and the needless bureaucracy.

It's refreshing.

Castiel is several thousand years old, but his soul is brand new and as shiny as the feathers on his heavy black wings every single day. He's truly a child on the inside – curious, untarnished by the tired way the world feels, and still desperate to please and make everyone happy.

The problem is, though, that you can't just tell him things are a certain way, because he'll always want to know why. He has, one does have to admit, acquired a rudimentary sense of tact, but even if he doesn't ask, he'll still wonder, and he won't believe until he knows.

In context, this means that there are only two things he can believe in without explanation: God and Dean Winchester. For Castiel, choosing to believe in something is just that, a choice. It's not exactly a clear process, though. He chose to believe Zachariah was acting on God's orders, but when proved wrong, he could accept it. If someone were to attempt to prove Dean's ultimate fallibility, Castiel would deny the existence of the solar system to prove them wrong. Beyond his almost fanatical need to understand, there's a deeply ingrained spirituality about him, at odd angles with his need to understand.

He needs to understand everything, except for some things.

It's a very human trait.

Either way, his faith comes from within, not from outside. He knows, as all angels do, in his soul, that God exists. If he weren't an angel, he'd probably be one of the types to deny God's existence for lack of proof.

His belief in Dean is more esoteric in nature. It's more like love than faith most times, but no one ever said the two were mutually exclusive.

(This is, of course, not to say that Castiel doesn't believe in toasters, because after all, he knows how those work now. However, believing in toasters is a lot less spiritual than believing in God, and thus not subject of this particular excursion.)

The point of the matter being the following: Castiel doesn't understand, and probably wouldn't if you told him, that you don't find God. God finds you.

Castiel has always wanted to meet God, even before he met Dean and the apocalypse began. Now he has reason to, however strange it may seem.

His search is thorough and exhaustive, and, quite honestly, one can't help but admire him. His concept of God is nowhere near as confined as could be feared. He wanders through playgrounds, inspecting children's eyes for the presence of God, unaware of parents drawing their kids away from the freak in the trench coat.

He stands perfectly still in a forest in central Europe and, with the help of his grace, he inspects every blade of grass, every leaf, every single molecule, and he doesn't find God anywhere.

He stands in the geographic center of the Sahara Desert and weighs every rock and every grain of sand, and around his neck, Dean's amulet pulses on and off in a strange rhythm, but it doesn't heat up, it just quivers, and Castiel assumes it's not used to being around an angel's neck.

He searches everywhere and in everything, when and where he can, when he's not chasing ghosts with the Winchester, but by night, he lies in motel rooms, between sheets that smell like stale cigarette smoke and sweat, curled tight against Dean, unheeding of the way their skin slip-slides and sticks and shivers uncomfortably depending on what state Dean's in.

Castiel barely ever sleeps, it's true, but there's a rest more profound than unconsciousness in the way Dean's breath feels, huffing against his skin, continually reminding him that Dean is exhilaratingly, gloriously alive.

The amulet heats up, not supernaturally, just the heat of skin on metal.

One night, in the haze of love, contact and lazy Texas heat in May, Castiel wonders if maybe this is how to find God.

He forgets the thought shortly afterwards.

Castiel never forgot things when he was a proper angel.

He's not a real human, though, either, and his strange inbetweenness frustrates him.

He's somehow lodged between understanding and not understanding the intricacies of humanity, these days. They have such an indescribably wealth of emotion in them, every day, and it overwhelms Castiel anew every time he feels.

On the other hand, he does vaguely comprehend the human need to hide emotions in sarcasm.

Life is like a box of chocolates. Life is like drowning very slowly. Love is like fire. Love is…

And Castiel doesn't understand any of the comparisons, but he's reasonably certain the whole point is not understanding. The point is feeling.

And feeling…feeling really is a bit like drowning.

Still, even though he can admit to the necessity of avoiding the burning intensity of direct emotion by making it sound like less than it is, analogies confuse Castiel. Why call a dog a cat if you can call it a dog?

He's also beginning to believe in the reality of emotional reasoning, because he's caught himself doing it.

He certainly doesn't know how you can have emotions and not act on them. The words, "I love you" seem to fall from his lips uncontrollably when Dean is near.

Dean almost always smiles, and, sometimes, gruffly, he says, "You, too, Cas".

It should be enough.

Mostly, it is.

Recently, though, a different sort of need stirs in Castiel.

It happens when he has Dean pressed into grimy motel sheets, when he's sucking kisses into Dean's lightly tanned shoulder, when he hears himself gasping out how much he loves Dean, words spilling out of his lips without bypassing his brain first.

"Love you…too…" Dean says, the end of the last word caught in a choked moan when Castiel nips at his collarbone. Dean has a very nice collarbone.

Castiel stops.

Dean pushes himself up onto his elbows. "Something wrong?" he asks. His cheeks are flushed pink and Castiel marvels at his thick eyelashes in the half-light of one little crappy motel lamp.

"I need more," Castiel says.

Dean leans up to kiss him. "That's why we're here, baby."

Castiel has long since overcome the inherent ridiculosity of the idea that he, who is thousands of years older than Dean, can be Dean's 'baby'.

He pushes Dean down into the sheets again, sliding down so he can lick and bite at a nipple, the suddenness of the move startling Dean into letting loose a series of increasingly wrecked and needy moans.

"I don't," Castiel says against Dean's skin, squirting lube onto Dean's belly and scooping it up with his fingers to prepare Dean, "mean this. I don't just want reciprocity, Dean."

Dean's eyes are wide and pleasure filled; Castiel's fingers stab none-too-gently at his prostate just to see his pupils dilate further. "Wha…what do you want?" Dean hisses as Castiel's fingers scissor, as his hips move involuntarily up, seeking friction where there is none.

"Capitulation," Castiel says hungrily against Dean's mouth, just before he claims it in a vicious kiss. He draws his fingers out, knowing Dean isn't quite sufficiently prepared and not really caring, and he thrusts inside Dean's body in one long slow push.

Dean groans loudly around Castiel's tongue, and Castiel can do nothing but move his hips hard, and fast, and so indescribably good, even as a small part of his mind likens his behavior to that of an animal rolling about in the mud.

"I," he says, his words interrupted by the frenzied pace and his own gasping breath, "I want you to be mine."

And Dean, well, Dean just…melts. The tension, the fight, drains out of his body, leaving only hunger and love. His legs hook around Castiel's waist in a way they never have before, in a way that's not so much un-masculine as it is desperate. His hands grab at any available skin, tousling Castiel's hair, wrapping around the back of his neck to pull him in for another kiss, even though they can both barely breathe. His body is pliant on the bed, just letting Castiel take what he wants, even as Dean himself grows so desperate he begins to plead.

Apparently, it was the right thing to say.

"Please," Dean says. "Please please please please, Cas, oh, oh my g – oh, touch me, please."

His eyes roll back in his head as Castiel thrusts hard, right there, at the same time as his clumsy human hand grabs for Dean's genitals and begin stroking just as harshly as he's fucking.

And then the analytical part of Castiel's mind just stops functioning completely, because Dean starts writhing and moaning uncontrollably, as if he were completely beyond words. And maybe he is. The thought makes Castiel growl and take yet more, groaning and kissing the word "mine" into every available patch of skin.

When Dean comes, he screams, a long, drawn-out noise that causes the people in the next room over to pound on the wall, and just as the last pulse leaves him, he groans out, "Yours," and Castiel is gone.

The world, he thinks hazily as he collapses down onto Dean in the aftermath, seems to be spinning faster than usual.

"Oh, fuck," Dean says. His voice is even lower than normal, and his throat is so dry it comes out cracked. "Oh, fuck."

"I…" Castiel begins, but then realizes he doesn't know how to finish that sentence. He pulls out of Dean's body, wincing at how sensitive his own is, and how raw Dean's hole must be. He drops down next to Dean, their heads resting side by side on the pillow, arms and legs still somehow tangled together, covered in sticky semen and sweat.

"I didn't mean to hurt you," Castiel says, rubbing a finger around the stretched skin on Dean's anus.

Dean shudders. "Trust me, you didn't," he says. "Are you okay?"

Castiel feels he should be the one asking that. "I don't know," he says, honestly. "I feel…human."

"I thought you said I wouldn't make you fall," Dean says, fear and trepidation clouding his expression.

"You aren't," Castiel says. "I'm making me fall. But…I'm not, as well."

"What do you mean?"

"I feel like humans do," Castiel admits, "I feel…so much. And my grace is losing power, but I have no desire to rip it out. I think I'm just…sliding."

Dean makes a strange noise and presses closer to Castiel.

"Angels," Castiel says, "don't need to possess things. People. I need…I needed to own you, Dean. It's…overwhelming."

Dean laughs shakily. "I'll say. Damn, do you know how…hot that was?"

"Yes," Castiel says. "I was there."

This time, Dean's laugh is less shaky and more honestly amused. "Damn, I love you," he says.

The slow seeping warmth of contentment spreads through Castiel, like sunshine on a lazy morning. He kisses Dean slowly, languidly, and when they separate slowly and Castiel sees the green-grey-brown of Dean's eyes staring straight into his own, he has an incomparable sense of rightness.

"Oh," he gasps.

"What?" Dean asks.

"I think," Castiel says, "I understand now."

"Understand what?"

"I don't need to look for God," Castiel says. "I just…"

Dean gives him a questioning look.

"I just need to trust that He knows this is right."

"Do you?" Dean asks.

It's a while before Castiel can bring himself to stop kissing Dean in order to say, "Yes."

-

The next morning, Sam turns to give him a strange look as Castiel slides into the backseat of the Impala.

"What happened?" he asks.

"Nothing, yet," Castiel answers.

"Okay," he says. "What's going to happen?"

"What's going to happen," Dean says, as he slams his door shut behind him and puts his mediocre coffee in the cup holder, "is that we're gonna fucking win this shit."

They drive off fifteen miles over the speed limit, with April sun warming Castiel's skin and Dean's presence warming his heart.

He slips just a little further in humanity, and it feels good.