Archive of Our Own

In fact, the angel seemed completely alien to the concept of bodily needs, or even physical discomfort. He wore the same rumpled clothes Jimmy had been wearing on the day he'd said Yes to him, right down to the stupid tie. Castiel never slept unless he passed out; he just kept going, as though he couldn't quite connect being on his feet for ninety-six hours with having blurred vision, aching bones and a splitting headache. 

Whenever Jimmy caught sight of himself, if Castiel looked into a mirror or a window reflection, he was pale and overworked. There were dark shadows under his eyes. A frown line was developing between his eyebrows. After a fight, he'd be bleeding. Cas would give a puzzled frown, examining a split eyebrow or a bloodied lip like he was trying to work out why a car engine was rattling.

It was as though Jimmy's body, with its weaknesses, its needs, its vulnerabilities, was some kind of inconvenience. Like when Cas had done his flux capacitor act to '78 and back, emerging with ears ringing, head pounding, blood streaming from his nose. Cas had only enough time to stare in dull surprise at having made it back before Jimmy's body gave out, and Cas blacked out in the Winchester boys' arms. He'd been up again the next day, walking around like an idiot, wondering why he had trouble moving after the metaphysical equivalent of being put through a scrap metal compactor.

But the worst thing about the physical side of being a vessel had nothing to do with burgers, or headaches, or Cas routinely finding ever more creative ways to get Jimmy's butt kicked seven ways to Sunday. No. At this point, the worst thing about being a vessel was Dean Winchester.

***

On a rainy morning somewhere south of Lansing, Michigan, Castiel materialised in the bathroom of a cheap motel room. The radio was blaring. Dean, undaunted by the tinny speakers, was attempting to sing and shave at the same time. Steam clouded the mirror, except for a patch at head-height where Dean had wiped it clear with the palm of his hand. Jimmy saw himself only as a blur in the fogged mirror, the dark of his hair and the pale of his trenchcoat.

"There's a calm before the storm, I know... Morning, Cas." Accustomed by now to Castiel's sudden appearances, Dean's hand didn't even twitch as he slid the razor across his jawline. "Always the bathroom with you. You really love that mirror trick, huh?"

"Dean."

"Cas." Dean was naked but for a towel wrapped around his waist. "When it's over, so they say," he sang, as Castiel, inches away, took a long, silent look. "It'll rain a sunny day, I know..."

It'd been months now since Jimmy realised Cas had a Thing for Dean Winchester. He'd been a little shocked, at first. Sin, and so on. Jimmy had never really considered his sexuality; it'd never occurred to him to do so. Although if he was honest with himself, when he reflected on meeting Amelia, he did recall a vague sense of relief along with the joy. Not gay. Dodged that bullet. 

Until now. Castiel was a messenger of God, for Heaven's sake - and there he'd be, following the Winchesters around some random town, staring confusedly at Dean's ass. Sweaty palms, racing heart, and a distinct bulge in the front of his pants. 

That wasn't like anything Jimmy knew about angels. But if the past year had taught Jimmy anything, it was how deeply, how thoroughly everything he thought he knew was bullshit. 

The real problem with the situation was that Cas didn't know about the Thing. Or, rather, he didn't know what it was, how it worked. Either way, it was driving Jimmy nuts. First it was hungry all the time; now he added horny all the time. And the longer it went on, the more Jimmy understood Dean's appeal, even felt it himself. As though Jimmy's physical needs and Castiel's... whatever it was... were merging together. 

 "Shinin' down like water."

Dean was paradoxical. Cheerful, perpetually cocky, but spend more than an hour around him and you knew how badly he'd been wounded. He'd whine and complain about the most trivial things, but everything he went through, he'd get knocked down and come up swinging - again, and again. Not because he had hope, but because it had to be done. He was irritating, confusing Cas with references he'd never understand, but somehow it was hard not to like him. And that barely-concealed hollowness inside him, the brief flashes of raw pain in his eyes made Cas react. Jimmy would get the physical sensations, the burn in his chest, the pounding heart, the quick breaths, and, of course, the hot, hard surge of his cock. And he'd try to work out what Cas was feeling. Longing? Love? Desire, mixed with some kind of protective urge? Castiel himself obviously had no idea. 

Once or twice, Jimmy was sure Cas had been about to pull Dean into his arms, even willed him to do it. But it never happened. Cas went along in this state of sealed emotion, immersed in the chaos of his body's physical response, neither he nor Jimmy able to do anything about it. Just like the hunger, there was no relief. Cas never jerked off. He probably didn't know how. Jimmy didn't know whether to be grateful for that, or to hate Cas for it; so he did both. 

Now, as Cas stood in the steaming motel bathroom, Jimmy smelled soap, the cool, masculine scent of shaving gel, and Dean's clean wet hair. Cas directed his eyes up and down over Dean's bare back and shoulders, taking in the day-old, neatly-stitched cut across a shoulder blade, the hard outline of muscle under smooth skin, the faded burn on his upper arm. 

Inevitably, Jimmy was hard, so hard it hurt. He felt Castiel draw his eyebrows together in a puzzled furrow.

"Why is it doing this?" Cas said. "I don't understand." 

- Whoa there, thought Jimmy in alarm. Cas, you are the king of awkward, but this? This is too much, even for you -

"I have to take the battery out and put it back in to make the lights come on," Cas continued, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. "Look."

If he'd been able to, Jimmy would have sighed with a combination of relief and irritation. Castiel was about as good at taking care of a cell phone as he was with Jimmy's body. He couldn't seem to grasp the concept that the Nokia N78 wasn't built for an owner whose nightly routine was some combination of getting dropped onto the hood of a moving car, hurled through a supporting wall, and beaten within an inch of his life by celestial assholes bent on his annihilation from this world and the next. 

Dean glanced at the phone. Its casing was scuffed and cracked, and in one place looked as though it had actually melted. "You're here for tech support, Cas? Again?" He looked up at Castiel, and Jimmy felt his stomach flip as the angel looked into Dean's long-lashed, almost-green eyes. "C'mon, man. Don't you think it might be time to let go? That thing's suffered enough." Dean raised his eyebrows. "You oughta let the poor bastard die." He grinned, turning back to the mirror. "I wanna kno-ow, have you ever seeeen the rain?"

"Do you have another?" Castiel said, voice catching. "I need you to be contactable, Dean."

"Sure thing," Dean said. "I'm pretty sure Sammy's got a spare. He's gone for supplies, should be back in a couple hours. Sun is cold, and rain is hard, I know. Been that way for all my time." Dean wiped the mirror again, clearing the condensation, to see Castiel staring back at him. "Cas, what the hell is up?"

"What? Nothing. Nothing is up." His voice rasped in his throat. He shifted uncomfortably, feeling the heavy thud of blood through his body, his throat and head and cock. Cas tugged the trenchcoat across his crotch. 

Jimmy wanted to smack him upside the head. Oh, for the love of - I can't take much more of this, Cas, he thought, and Castiel shook his head, almost as though he'd heard. He could hear, sometimes, at moments of particular intensity. Perhaps this was one.

"Castiel." Dean wiped the remnants of shaving gel from his cheeks and chin with a facecloth, and turned to face Cas. Jimmy's stomach churned. "I know you're not here about your phone. What's going on?"

The pressure built, and built. Jimmy's head was spinning. Cas was wavering, stumbling. 

Dean laid a hand on his shoulder, concern in his eyes. "Cas - what's wrong? What's happening?"  

But Castiel was unable to make his mouth move. For a moment, neither of them was in control, and Jimmy's body swayed against the wall.

Then, with a flash of white light and a shifting sensation, Jimmy felt the angel slipping backwards in Jimmy's mind. A moment of panic, as he wondered if Cas had gone, if he'd rejected the angel like a body rejecting a transplant - What happens to you now, Cas? He thought - but then he felt Castiel's presence, and knew that their roles were reversed. 

Unprepared for having to consciously support himself after so long as a passenger, Jimmy's knees buckled. He collapsed on slippery white tiles, felt his knees hitting the hard surface, then his palms. Jimmy flexed a hand, and it was his. It moved when he told it to. He could run his fingers along the edge of one of the clean, damp tiles on the bathroom floor, trace a fingertip through the condensation.

"Cas! You okay?" Dean crouched beside him. The knot in his towel was slipping. Jimmy could look wherever he wanted to, now, so he looked at that towel, and the swell of Dean's obliques above it, soft and hard at once.

Cas would like that. He was there. Jimmy felt him there and was relieved, which was weird. In the days after Castiel had nearly taken Claire, Jimmy hated him. He would have given anything to make Castiel to disappear, and he'd flipped helplessly between hating at Cas, so hard the angel had stumbled in his tracks once or twice, and falling sullenly into the background. It was like having a phantom limb, only about a million times worse. He'd see something from the corner of his eye and try to turn his head to look, or try to scratch an itch that Cas was too preoccupied to notice, before remembering with a shock that he couldn't move his own body. That had subsided, in time. It wasn't so bad, once you got used to it. At least he wasn't bored. He was scared out of his wits, usually, but even that settled because Cas wasn't, so the physiological feedback loop was broken. Eventually he just relaxed, watching the show, longing for a cheeseburger and...

And for Dean Winchester's mouth. God, his lips were perfection. No wonder Cas got himself all worked up. Jimmy reached to brush his fingertips along Dean's lips, and the tip of his index finger thrust between them, just a little. He was still clumsy, still getting used to his body. 

"Uh - Cas?" Dean took his hand gently. He didn't pull Jimmy away, just held his hand, thumb brushing over the backs of his fingers. 

"It's okay," Jimmy rasped. "I'm okay. Dean, it's Jimmy."

"Jimmy?" Dean blinked, long lashes flicking over the fair skin under his eyelids.

"Yeah, it's me." Dean's face was smooth, just-shaved, and Jimmy couldn't resist. He reached to cup a hand around Dean's jawline, thumb brushing over a cheekbone.  

Dean breathed in, long and slow, letting Jimmy touch him. His eyes were confused, worried. "What - what happened to Cas?"

Jimmy couldn't help but be a little offended by that. Man gets his body back in front of him, and his thoughts go straight to the guy that took him over. "Castiel is fine," he said. "He's here. In the backseat."

"What's going on, Jimmy? Cas going to find himself another meatsack?"

"No." Jimmy shook his head. "No. Dean, listen. I don't know how long I've got before he wants to drive again." Heart thudding, he slid his hand along Dean's face, reached behind his head, fingers working into freshly-washed, still-damp hair, and pulled Dean closer, close enough to press his lips against Dean's ear. 

"You have to take him," he murmured.

"Uh." Dean swallowed. "I have to, uh."

"Yes, that's what I mean. I'm dying in here, Dean. Just do it, please." He kissed the rim of Dean's ear, feeling tiny, soft hairs under his lips. God, he'd wanted to do this for so long, he realised. Well, Cas had wanted to... it didn't matter. "Just take him. Right here." He shot a look at the two single beds in the motel room, one roughly made, the other still a tangle of sheets. Dean's. "He wants it. Wants you. All day, every day, and I'm telling you, it's killing me." 

And because he could, Jimmy pressed quick kisses along Dean's cheekbone, across the bridge of his nose, and then found his mouth. "Please," he whispered, and then they were kissing, Dean's warm lips parting, the tip of his tongue pushing back against Jimmy's mouth, slipping inside. Jimmy heard Dean moan, felt Dean's mouth pushing against his own, faster, harder. Jimmy reached for the towel, tugged hard, and felt it slip away. Warm muscle filled the palm of his hand in a firm swell. Jimmy felt his body thud against the tiles as Dean pushed him onto his back. Now there was a hard thigh between his legs, and Jimmy pushed his cock against Dean, arching into the contact.

Finally, finally, he thought, as Dean moved against him, and groaned as deft fingers began to undo his tie, and Dean's mouth found his throat. Jimmy was slipping, he realised, no longer in control. He lay back, relaxing under Dean's hands and mouth, as Castiel took over. 

Do it right, Cas, he thought, and slipped into the background in a sweet tangle of sensation, of Dean's mouth on his collarbone, Dean's hands through his hair, as Castiel began to fumble his way out of his pants.

And with a wave of despair, Jimmy realised something truly awful - he'd forgotten to tell Dean to order him a God-damned pizza afterward.