42. Because of How I Feel About You

“Last time we spoke, you said that it bothers you to see Castiel sitting on the floor with you.”

Dean suppresses a sigh. He should have figured that a week wasn’t gonna be nearly long enough for Benny to have forgotten his little comment. It’s almost like the man is reading his mind, plucking out the exact thing he doesn’t wanna talk about. 

Like before, they’re both sitting on the floor in his office. This time around, Dean had allowed Cas to escort him up to the therapist’s room, figuring it would do a lot to make the alpha more comfortable – Dean had already proved to himself that he was capable of doing it alone, anyway. 

It had been clear to him that he and Benny were on good terms – they’d clasped hands, smiled at one another like old friends. Chatted, for a brief moment, about Benny’s progress with other residents and new techniques he was trying out. Dean had been content to let them talk for a while, taking the opportunity to snoop around the man’s office and examine books and trinkets. 

It would have been strictly nice, he thinks, if Cas hadn’t insisted on carrying Dean’s cushion with him. If he hadn’t insisted on showing it off to Benny proudly, mentioning how clever Dean had been to think of it. If he hadn’t gone and mentioned how he himself had purchased one as well, going on about it as if admitting to another grown man that he, an alpha male, habitually sat on the floor on a fucking pillow was not mortifying in the slightest. 

And, though Cas had been oblivious in the midst of his excitement, Benny had clearly taken note of Dean’s red face and frustrated look at the cushion and the alpha. Thankfully, he hadn’t said anything in front of Cas to give Dean away – instead, he’d amicably finished up their conversation with vague, pleasant statements, and had gently chased Cas out of the room. 

So, Dean has already been caught. Unwilling – unable – to lie, he nods. 

“Why do you think that is?”

“Because…” he trails off. “I don’t know. Lots of reasons.”

“Because he’s an alpha?” the man checks, referencing their conversation from last time. 

“I mean – yeah. Alphas aren’t… they aren’t built for that.”

“And you think omegas are?” he asks, his tone as nonjudgmental as always. 

Dean, wrestling with a flash of frustration, wishes for the hundredth time that he could get a better read on the dude. If Benny would just give away when he disagrees with him, Dean could suss out exactly what the dude wants him to say. He’d happily parrot whatever it was, just to give the appearance of making progress. 

Well. Now that he thinks about it, maybe there’s a reason that Cas hired a beta therapist. Dean can’t be the only omega with the itching desire to please – and he doesn’t think that instinct would be all that helpful here. 

Like all the other lessons Dean has learned, he’s gotta figure it out on his own in order for it to stick. So he just shrugs, knowing he’s probably about to say the wrong thing, but unable to figure out what the right thing might be. 

“Pretty easy to put us on our knees,” he says quietly, his hand raising to cover his nape subconsciously. “One friggin’ pinch, and it’s all over.”

Benny squints. “Having a biological vulnerability doesn’t mean you should be made vulnerable. Kick a man in his jewels, and he’s down for the count, too, but you don’t see that being glorified as men’s rightful position in society.” 

When Dean has nothing to say to that, he raises an eyebrow as if he knows he still disagrees. “My point, Dean, is that it’s no more your place than it is his. No matter what you’ve been conditioned to believe.”

Dean feels something uncomfortable squirm in his gut. “But…” 

He takes a breath, makes himself go on when Benny cocks his head and waits for him to continue. “He… owns me,” he says weakly, and the words don’t hurt. Not really. ‘Cause Cas doesn’t treat him like that anyway – at this point, it almost feels like a technicality. Still, the difference between them is obvious. “It’s… it must humiliate him.”

“It doesn’t.” 

Benny says it with such blunt simplicity that Dean can’t help but want to believe him. “For one thing, you need to remember that he’s choosing to sit there – he wasn’t ever trained to. He doesn’t have the same negative associations with it that you do.” 

He waits for Dean to slowly nod before he goes on. “For another, Castiel doesn’t care about any of that master-slave bullshit. The contract is just a necessity to help you, not something he wants to hold over you – and I think you know that.” 

Dean nods again, and Benny leans back against his desk, making a satisfied noise as he gets more comfortable. “He can’t stand the thought of lording over you like you’re below him,” he continues, “because to him, you ain’t.”

The words make something uncomfortable shift inside of him, a feeling he’s beginning to become familiar with but doesn’t want to examine too closely. If he does, he knows he isn’t going to like what he sees.  

When Cas – or someone close to him – acts as though he isn’t really a slave, even though he very much still is, he gets this squirmy, nervous feeling inside of him. A sixth-sense sort of tingling, the same one that told him when there was someone behind him in the dark, or that the pair of eyes across the bar were less than friendly, or that his dad was a little drunker than he seemed. 

He’d felt that a lot, with Alastair. The alpha had loved to fuck with Dean’s expectations. There’d been plenty of days where he’d held Dean to the dirt without a second to breathe, days where he’d taken every possible opportunity to kick Dean while he was down – to remind him of how low he was and always would be. But there had also been times where he’d… played with him, for lack of a better word. Tested his training, poked and prodded him until Dean made a mistake – looked him in the eye, cried out without permission, dared to beg for something like food or a blanket. Sometimes he’d play along, for a while. Act like he hadn’t noticed, or that Dean had somehow earned the slip-up, or a sliver of kindness.  

Inevitably, though, Dean would end up paying dearly for daring to pretend he was something he was not. Daring to pretend he had a right to anything at all. 

The two situations are worlds apart, and he knows that. He still can’t help but sense some abstract danger out of the corner of his eye; an immense, looming thing that he knows he’s only allowing himself to feel the barest trickle of.  

“Then how come I sometimes… want him to?” 

The question slips out without his permission and his face goes beet red. He can feel Benny looking at him – feel, not see – because he’s staring down at his lap with self-hatred slithering around him like a snake.

Because this is the real issue, isn’t it?

He does care about Cas’s comfort – he hadn’t been lying. But the thing that bothers him the most about all of this is the... betrayal of his mind. This damage inside of himself, some broken part of him that he doesn’t understand. 

Benny raises an eyebrow. “You want him to sit above you,” he echoes. There’s no way of knowing how he feels about that statement – his tone is neutral. Dean shifts uncomfortably, shame hot and sharp inside of him.

“Not always. But…” 

He swallows. Thinks back to the night that Cas had touched his nape, had held him to his chest. “A while back, he – I kinda… freaked out,” he admits, glossing over it in a way that is anything but subtle. He can tell that Benny isn’t going to let that go, either, but he doesn’t push it now. “And I… I went to my knees and… yeah.” He rubs at his jaw. “I think he already told you.”

Benny doesn’t confirm or deny that, waiting patiently instead. Dean, somewhat against his will, finds himself talking. Trying to explain, even though he knows there’s no excuse for how he’s acting. 

“And I’ve… there have been a couple other times. Where I’ve, uh. Kneeled. While he was standing or sitting on a chair or something.” He closes his eyes, thinks about where he’d been a few nights ago, curled up on the floor at Cas’s feet as the alpha had slept away. The fucking peace he’d felt, the sense of rightness that had settled inside of him just a few minutes later, when Cas had stood with his hand on Dean’s head. 

Benny watches him carefully. “How do you feel, when you do things like that?”

Dean looks away. “I…” 

He swallows. There’s no point in lying to the man, even though it’s his knee jerk reaction to do so. “I feel… right, I guess. I feel better. Like things made more sense. It… I always calm down.”

He grimaces. “Back on that, uh. That one night? I even made him take me down.” Dean laughs, self deprecating, the sheer magnitude of what he’s admitting catching up to him. “What’s wrong with me, man? What’s so fucked up inside me that I… that I want to do that?”

Benny doesn’t answer his question. Instead, he asks one of his own. “Does Castiel force you down below him?”

“What?” Dean is taken aback. “No! He wouldn’t.”

Benny nods slowly. “So, you made the choice.”

“Didn’t I just say that?” he snaps, defensive. He already knows it’s his fault that this is still happening, knows it’s his own weakness that keeps making him make Cas uncomfortable. But Benny doesn’t say that. 

“You think there might be a difference there, Dean? Between someone shoving you to the floor, and you choosing to be vulnerable like that?”

“Well, yeah. Of course that’s different,” he spits, his hackles up. “I know it’s me that’s doing it, not him.” 

Benny studies him. “You see it as a personal weakness.”

Dean swallows. Of course he does – what else would it be? He’s finally got the opportunity to be an equal to someone, and instead of jumping at the chance, he’s throwing it away. He understands what Benny is trying to tell him about Cas – understands that Cas isn’t exactly dealing with the humiliation that Dean thought he was when he sits down on the floor with him. But he can’t apply that same logic to himself, not here. It’s one thing to make the choice to be equal with someone; it’s a whole different can of worms to want to be below someone.

Dean realizes that his fingertips are tingling – when he looks down, they’re tangled tightly in the string inside his hoodie. Slowly, choking on the silence in the room, he unwinds it. Flexes his hands, stares down at the little white and red marks the string had made. 

“I’ve never… I’ve never wanted that before.” 

The words come out painful and twisted, nothing like the aggressive reminder he meant for them to be. He doesn’t want to be seen as weak, even though he is. It’s in moments like this that he’s absolutely certain he’s doing the right thing by not trying to find Sam and pull him back into his fucked up life.

Benny is silent for a moment, parsing out what he’s going to say – probably because he can sense that Dean is a hair trigger away from a meltdown. “Most of the so-called science they teach about omegas is horseshit, Dean. I’m sure you know that. It’s propaganda at its finest. But there is a grain of truth to the pack dynamics of it all.” 

He can feel himself tense, can feel familiar steel seep into his spine as he prepares to hear what he’s always been told by people in power – that on some level, he wants and even needs to be stepped on, that he was made for it. 

But Benny splays his hands out and makes a whoa, there motion, like he can tell by Dean’s glare alone where his train of thought is going. “I don’t mean that we’re wild animals, or that we have instincts we can’t control before they become actual actions. That’s rhetoric that rapist apologists push. But it is true that, on a biological level, we all search for security.”

Dean scoffs. “My idea of security must be pretty fucked, then.”

“I don’t think so,” Benny argues simply. “The type behavior you’re describing, believe it or not, is very common in healthy alpha-omega partnerships.” 

He seems to realize what he’s implying, because he takes a careful, verbal step back when Dean’s eyes widen. “Not just sexual partners. Friends, siblings. Alphas feel the urge to be protectors, sometimes – need to feel like they’re providing. And, often, omegas have a matching urge to feel protected and cared for.” 

He shrugs. “The opposite is often true too, because we are human beings and human beings are multi-faceted. It’s complicated. All I’m tryin’ to say is that it’s not shameful or unusual for you to have some so-called submissive tendencies.”

The word rankles. Submissive. He doesn’t need a therapist to tell him he’s so fucked up that he wants to be subjugated, that he finds comfort in it somehow; maybe because it’s all he knows or, worse, maybe because he’s an omega and omegas really are made for no other purpose than to get fucked with their necks held down. 

He can’t even say that he disagrees. He’s angry because Benny must be right. Otherwise, he wouldn’t feel the way he does.

But the therapist shakes his head, as though he can see Dean’s thoughts growing like thorns. “Big difference between choosing to trust someone enough to be vulnerable and being beaten into submission, Dean. I was talking about the first one. That one takes bravery. The second one is just survival.”

More tired than he is angry, Dean deflates. He hates this, hates peeling back the layers of himself so he can be studied by someone else. Hates having to look his fucking issues in the eye. 

He shouldn’t be mad at Benny. The man’s right. It doesn’t change the fact that he feels disgusting inside, that he hates his body all the more for making him into a little bitch that needs a big strong alpha to comfort him. He closes his eyes.

“I don’t know how any of this shit works.”

“Can you explain what you mean by that?”

Dean scowls down at his hands. “Any of this… this omega shit. I never got to… I got on the pill when I was fifteen,” he admits. It’s the first time he’s told someone that – the first time he’s realized that he can, without fear of blow-back. He doesn’t think Benny is gonna be the type to deride him over shirking his natural born duties by downing a pill once a day, even if they had been illegal.  

It’s not like he could have gotten them any other way. His dad wasn’t gonna pay for them, and he hadn’t had a prescription – no doctor would have approved one, not as young as he was. Heat suppressants and scent blockers were usually only given to omegas with jealous alphas – and only because the alphas were the ones requesting them. Getting them, and taking them, had been a risk. 

But he’d been tired of the threat of a heat. It was an ever looming danger for a kid who spent a hell of a lot of time hustling pool or darts in bars full of seedy alpha men who would have pinned him to the wall without a second thought if they’d known what he was – not to mention how dangerous it would have been when he’d turned tricks. 

More than that, though, was the everyday drag. He’d been fed up with the dismissive or predatory looks thrown his way, even when doing something as simple as picking up groceries. Tired of not being taken seriously, tired of being on high alert everywhere he went.

After a couple years, his dad’s aftershave and frequent showers hadn’t been enough to hide his scent anymore. So, instead, he’d bought meds secondhand off back-alley dealers at twice the price, working twice as hard to afford them and take care of Sam at the same time.

Benny nods. He looks like he’s just come to a realization with that information. “Ah. And then you entered the trade at, what, sixteen?” When Dean nods, he continues. “Sounds like you didn’t exactly have the chance to explore the finer aspects of your designation.”

He shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess not. I don’t know anything about how omegas are supposed to act. It’s all mixed up in my head with how I was… ” 

God, he doesn’t want to say it. But he knows, even though it hurts to admit, that he’s so much the product of someone else’s desires that he can’t separate his own from them anymore. He’s too well trained. The thought makes him want to crawl out of his skin. 

Benny doesn’t force him to go on, but Dean eventually finds his voice again. “I don’t know what nesting is. I don’t get that pack-dynamic shit you talked about earlier. I don’t know what a normal heat is even supposed to look like.” He winces. “And I sure as fuck don’t understand why I’m passing up the chance to sit next to Cas just to kneel instead.”

Benny nods slowly. He looks… understanding. Not like he is disgusted by him, which is more than he’d hoped for, but just like he gets it. Hell, he might. He deals with enough fucked up people like him that maybe this is a problem he’s seen before. “So you’re experiencing these urges on your own for the first time now.”

“Yeah. Only I don’t know what’s me and what’s… left over. From them.”

The therapist looks sympathetic. “Not gonna lie to you, Dean. It’s probably a mixture of both.” When Dean flinches, Benny’s voice softens a little – though it’s no less strong and reassuring. “You wanna know what I think?”

He waits for Dean to cautiously nod, and then goes on. “I think the action of kneeling is something you learned. You kneel, you’re safe, at least relatively speaking. So, while I don’t think that the urge itself is something inherent within you, it is something that makes you feel a little more secure in your environment.” He pushes up his glasses, giving Dean a smile. “What I do think is ‘you’, so to speak, is being brave enough to ask Castiel to help you feel that security. Even if it’s in a form you don’t understand.”

Dean feels something uncomfortable squirm inside of him at being called brave. That’s not how he feels. He feels like an absolute coward. But Benny seems to disagree; he’s looking at Dean critically, like he can read his mind. “If you weren’t being brave, Dean, we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all. The first time Castiel shut you down, you’d have let it go.”

Dean swallows. “Oh.”

“Telling the man some of this might help, you know,” he suggests, a slight tinge of sarcasm coloring his words. “Don’t forget he’s as new to this as you are.”

Dean blushes. He can’t deny that he tends to subconsciously rely on Cas to know all this shit already, relies on him to lead the way even when, by all rights, there’s no reason he should be any better at this than Dean is. It’s easy to forget that alphas, despite what he’s been trained to believe, don’t have all the answers. 

“It’s good that you feel safe enough here that you’re able to ask for things, believe it or not,” he says finally. “But,” he adds, “if you want to change your habits, I’d suggest doing some research on what is so-called normal behavior.” 

He shuffles through his bag, pulls out a small book that looks educational in nature and offers it to Dean. “Let’s call that homework.”

Dean takes it slowly, snorting when he reads the title. “Seriously? Your Body and You, Omega Edition?”

“It’s actually got correct information in it, if that’s what you’re worried about. Propaganda free.”

“It looks like it’s for teenagers.”

“That’s because it is.” He holds up a hand when Dean begins to protest. “Think about it, Dean. That’s when people who had a normal childhood start to learn about these things. That’s when you were supposed to learn those things. You didn’t get that chance, but it’s not too late.”

Dean scowls down at the book, but he has to admit that Benny is right. It can’t hurt anything but his pride, and that’s in smithereens anyway. “Fine.”

He nods. “On top of that, you can always ask me, Dr. Barnes, or even Balthazar if you have questions. Barnes and I are betas, of course, but we both went to med school. We know how things work. And Balthazar would be happy to talk you through anything you’d like.”

Dean softens, just a little. “Okay.”

Benny looks at him sternly. “But before any of that, talk to Castiel, Dean. That’s all you can do. And if I’ve learned anything at all about the man, it’s that he’ll listen.”

Dean doesn’t talk much on the drive home. 

That’s nothing new, of course. Castiel has grown used to long hours of quiet companionship, hours of nothing being exchanged between them but small smiles. He thinks, once upon a time, that Dean might have been boisterous – full of energy and banter. But the safest state, for most slaves, is one of silence. As comfortable as Dean may feel with him, it’s remained his norm. 

One day, Castiel hopes that will change. 

The quiet persists through dinner, through the evening news. Dean is more flighty than normal. He bolts his food, paces, lets little bursts of energy send him bouncing from shelf to shelf and room to room like a nervous roomba. Castiel tries very hard not to comment, or let his concern become visible as he slowly finishes his dinner and lets the omega try and work out his anxiety, whatever the source of it may be. He keeps his eyes on his plate, determined to let Dean process things at his pace.

“Cas? Could we, uh,” Dean says from his right hand side, breaking off with wide eyes when Castiel jumps at the sudden break in silence. 

He looks up from his dinner sharply. Dean hardly ever asks for anything, and so he gives the man his full attention – perhaps too suddenly, because Dean swallows sort of nervously and his gaze flitters away. He takes a step back. 

Castiel stays silent, letting Dean work his courage back up. It doesn’t take long. Eyeing Castiel’s cross-legged position on the floor with something bordering on alarm, he plops down to the carpet as well. He runs a hand through his hair. Takes a breath.  “Could we watch a movie?”

He smiles, relieved. “Of course we can, Dean. What would you like to watch?”

Dean falters like he hadn’t quite thought that far. “Oh. Um. I don’t really care. Just wanted to sit down here with you,” he says absently. And then, when his words catch up to him, he blushes. “Uh – I mean, I just…” 

“I would like that,” Cas says, and he means it. It’s nice to know that Dean wants to spend time with him while doing something as innocuous as watching a film. He waits for Dean to meet his eye, and smiles when he does. “Why don’t you go wash up? I’ll do the same, and we can watch one before bed.”

Apparently relieved for some direction to follow, Dean nods his head as though he has been given marching orders. He waits for Castiel to push himself up from the ground before he follows suit – something Castiel cannot fail to notice – and heads upstairs. 

Castiel jumps through his shower as though he’s being timed. Dean, he knows, likes to linger in the hot water, so if he hurries he will have at least a few minutes to himself to prepare, and make the omega as comfortable as possible. 

He stares at the innards of his pantry with a sort of helpless confusion. Castiel knows, at least, that people like to eat snacks when they watch movies – he thinks he is remembering that correctly, anyway. The bag of tortilla chips he fishes out feels immediately silly, and his next victim –  a half empty package of licorice that he doesn’t even remember buying – is likely inedible. 

Sighing, he stares at the packaged food he’d stocked up on before Dean’s arrival. The box of microwave popcorn bags emerges from the darkness like a beacon, and, triumphant, he digs it out from behind the steel cut oats and drops it on the counter just as he hears Dean coming back down the stairs. His steps are even and sure, limp all but gone, and he can’t help but smile to himself as he picks up on his freshly showered, apple sweet scent. 

When he pokes his head around the corner, Dean has already settled down in front of the couch. He doesn’t notice Castiel looking, and probably only for that reason does he see the distant, contemplative look on the omega’s face. He is staring off at nothing, hands tucked around his knees.

“Do you like popcorn?”  

Dean looks up at him from his position on the ground, pulled from whatever thoughts had put that expression on his face. He settles back until he’s cross-legged. “Duh, dude. Butter?” 

Castiel scoffs. “Of course. Is there any other way?” Dean grins, and the expression is easy and relaxed and it makes something warm appear in his chest. 

“Why don’t you pick something to watch while I pop a few bags?” he suggests, gesturing to the remote. 

Dean looks a little caught off guard. He glances at the remote, then back at Castiel. His question, while not quite tentative, is a little transparent in terms of his comfort level with Castiel’s request. “Uh… What do you like?”

Cocking his head to the side, Castiel thinks for a moment. “What about the movie you mentioned before? It’s a Wonderful Life?”

The omega snorts, shaking his head. “That’s a Christmas movie, Cas.” At his blank stare, he tacks on, “It’s April.” 

“Ah. I wasn’t aware that movies could be considered seasonal.”

“Would you watch Die Hard in July?” he asks jokingly, clearly intending for the question to be sarcasm; but at Castiel’s furrowed brow, he shakes his head with a small, disbelieving noise. 

Castiel braces for a familiar sort of frustration – the kind he’d continuously encountered in college and, to a lesser extent, at his job. The impatient irritation that he’s always received for not being familiar with pop-culture. Of course, it was through no fault of his own – though no one has ever cared enough to ask. It wasn’t as though he’d been to public school, wasn’t as though his nannies or tutors had ever really been interested in spending time with him outside of their job description. 

Castiel swallows. Shakes his head, and explains, “I am quite limited in regards to my movie knowledge, unfortunately. You might call me sheltered,” for what feels like the hundredth time.

Dean stares at him for a moment, his gaze a little calculating, and an embarrassed blush starts to creep up Castiel’s neck. He wishes, not for the first time, that he’d grown up in a normal setting – if only so that he would have some level of competence to reassure Dean that he isn’t a complete hermit. 

“I’ll pick it,” the omega says after a pause, his voice less mocking than Castiel had feared. 

Intent on apologizing for his ineptitude, he clears his throat. Dean speaks before he can. 

“Kinda cool,” he muses, looking at Castiel with what can only be described as fondness, “that I get to be the one to show you all this stuff. It’s… I miss that,” he says softly. “Getting to share things. Watching other people… experience a good movie for the first time? Or a killer song? That’s awesome.” 

Castiel’s chest suddenly feels a little warmer. “That’s… not usually how people react.”

Dean furrows his brow. “How do you mean?”

“I mean that my hermit-like ignorance is usually quite a source of amusement, if not outright irritation.” 

Dean scoffs. “Well, people suck.” He picks up the remote and starts tapping at it, his gaze flicking between it and the TV. He looks quite determined, all of a sudden, to pick out the perfect film.

“Not all people,” Castiel says softly. 

Dean smiles – a real smile, one that makes his eyes crinkle at the corners and his lips quirk up at the edges. He even blushes. Just a little. “Go get us some popcorn, mountain man,” he says playfully, waving him off.

So he does. 

It takes a while – he’s got to dig out the microwavable bags, and fiddles with the timer until it’s correct. He stands in front of the thing, waiting for all the kernels to pop, carefully clicking open the door before it starts to burn. The whole time, he smiles to himself. 

But by the time he returns to the living room, the easy atmosphere has faded. Dean seems nervous, chewing on his lip, lost in his own thoughts.  

“Did you make a selection?” 

Dean glances at the TV like he’s forgotten about it. “Oh. Uh, yeah. I don’t know if you’ll like it – it’s sorta weird, if I remember right. But Bruce Willis is awesome, so that makes up for it.”

On the screen, a silent preview of the film is playing. A woman with very orange hair is galavanting around some sort of futuristic setting. “It looks very… colorful.”

Handing Dean his bowl, Castiel settles down on the cushion next to him.It’s not the most comfortable position, but he leans back on the couch with determination and shifts until he finds an angle that might be acceptable for the next few hours.

When he looks over, Dean is staring at him. 

He cocks his head to the side, nodding slowly to the TV. “Would you like to start the movie?”

Dean blinks. He makes a face, and then rubs at his forehead with his hand. He looks… frustrated. “Why can’t you just be normal?”  

His weary tone takes Castiel by surprise. In his chest, his heart sinks a little – maybe Dean doesn’t find his ineptitude as endearing as he thought. “I beg your pardon?”

Dean snorts, his fist still pressed gently to his head. “Case in point, dude.”

Castiel frowns, leaning forward to smell a little closer. Where he’d expected anger, there is only a faint sort of frustration, and a layer of embarrassment that he doesn’t understand. Dean doesn’t move from his position, his knees up with his elbows resting on them, looking away. “What is this about, Dean? Are you al-”

“Canyoupleasejustsitonthecouch?” Dean blurts. 

Castiel has to replay the string of words a few times before he can pick them apart. The omega still hasn’t looked at him, but his cheeks are bright red, and getting darker with every second he sits in stunned silence.

“I…” he turns his head to the side, puzzled. “I believe I told you that I don’t intend to sit above you,” he reminds the man, and Dean’s lips press together. 

“Yeah.” Finally, he drops his hand, chewing on his lip as he looks up at Castiel. “You did. But, Cas, I’m… I really don’t want you down here.”

He tries not to let that hurt him, and when that fails, he tries not to let that hurt show on his face. “I can give you space,” he says carefully, but he knows he doesn’t fool the omega because Dean’s expression sharpens as he stares. 

“That’s not… dammit,” he huffs, hitting the floor with a fist lightly. “Why is this so hard?”

“If you don’t want me sitting next to you –”

“Jesus, Cas, I do. I just… I don’t want you to be on the floor.”

He relaxes slightly, but he still doesn’t understand. “Well, I don’t want you to be on the floor either. When you’re ready to sit with me on the couch, we can both do so.”

Opening his mouth like he’s going to say something, Dean stops himself mid-breath. When he turns away, his eyes are downcast. “Yeah.”

He looks… disappointed, to a degree. But there’s an overlying layer of acceptance that Castiel doesn’t like; a filter on the omega’s expression that tells him that Dean is unsurprised by his answer. Unsurprised by being denied. And, more alarmingly, a dimness to his eyes that tells Castiel he isn’t going to fight it anymore. 

It’s only now that Castiel stops and thinks about his words, and considers how many times Dean has tried to bring up this same issue. Only now that he wonders if it’s more important than the man had let on. 

“Do you understand why I don’t want to sit above you?” he asks, and Dean’s eyes jerk toward him. He’d obviously expected the conversation to be over once he’d agreed. Now, though, he shakes his head, just a little, and Castiel counts that as a victory. 

“No,” he says, a little too careful still. “You said before it’s because you don’t want me to feel uncomfortable, but it… it doesn’t, Cas. Not really. It feels normal. This, right here?” he adds, gesturing between them, “This feels wrong. ‘Cause you’re an alpha, and alphas don’t sit on the ground.”

“In a better world, omegas wouldn’t either,” Castiel argues calmly. “No one deserves to be degraded like this.”

Dean just looks… hurt. And more than a little frustrated. “If that’s true, then you don’t deserve this either,” he argues back, something desperate in his face. 

It hits Castiel, then, that Dean cares very much about this. It should have been obvious. The only times he’s ever stood his ground and argued with Castiel, after all, is when he feels strongly about something. Dean is hungry to be understood. He tries his best, takes a step back, removes his biases as Dean goes on. 

“I get it. I do. You don’t want to look at me down here because you think it’s hurting me, somehow. But it ain’t. Not really. What does hurt is that you’re making yourself suffer for my sake. ‘Degrading’ yourself,” he says, air quotes around the word, “the way you think I’m being degraded. And I don’t want that.”

He blinks. Dean does, too. This is the first serious desire that Dean has communicated with him unprompted – or, at least the first serious desire that Dean has continued to bring up after being denied more than once. And he knows that’s meaningful. 

“What do you want?” he asks, wishing he had a long time ago. 

Dean lets loose a breath. It sounds a little like a laugh. He looks… if not happy, then something close. Like he’s surprised and excited that Castiel is taking him seriously, is actually listening to him. That makes guilt squirm inside of him – how often, now, has he dismissed Dean’s words instead of taking them into consideration? Counted them as nothing more than those of a confused and abused animal, like they weren’t coming from a human being with valid feelings? 

“I want… ” 

Even now he struggles, searching for the words to articulate himself, and Castiel stays quiet and lets him. This is important – bigger than an argument about a floor cushion – and he sees that now. 

Dean makes a frustrated noise, a familiar expression of self depreciation snaking across his face, and shakes his head. “Most of the time, I don’t mind you sitting next to me. In fact, I appreciate the hell out of it. But…” He chews on his words for a moment. “Sometimes, I need you to sit up there. I need to feel like I have a place here. I know you won’t get rid of me,” he says, his tone rock solid, and Castiel warms at that, “but sometimes I sort of… forget. Being down here makes it… easier. I guess. I don’t know.”

Dean looks down at his hands. “Someday soon, I know I’ll want the same thing you do,” he adds, sounding small. “I do want to stop feeling like I need to be down here. But for now, that’s... not where I’m at.” 

He looks ashamed, but he still tells Castiel what he thinks, and that takes a kind of bravery Castiel doesn’t think he’s ever had. “I feel…” Dean swallows. “I feel safe, when I’m next to you like that. Really safe – like, animal-brain safe, you know? I get that that’s fucked up, but it’s true. And feeling that… It’s all I want sometimes, Cas.”

Castiel breathes out. “Okay.”

Dean snaps his head up to look at him. “Okay?”

He nods. “Okay.” 

Slowly, he stands from his seat on the floor, the cushion beneath him a little squashed. He picks it up, brushes it off. Hands it to Dean, who takes it blankly. “No point in letting that one go to waste. You can put it in another room – maybe the kitchen? So you don’t have to keep carrying that one back and forth. I’ll buy one for your room, too. And the office.”

Dean stares at him. Slowly, a grin spreads across his face, wild and incredulous. “You’re listening to me.”

He says it like it’s the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to him. Perhaps it is. Castiel feels another punch of shame, but he smiles over it. Says, “I’m sorry that I didn’t sooner.” 

Dean shakes his head. “Benny said you would. I should’a known,” he says, smile still there, and just like that he’s forgiven Castiel for stripping him of his humanity. Forgiven him for treating Dean like he’s lesser. Just like that, as though it is that easy. 

Maybe for Dean, it is. He sits down on the couch. Looks down at the omega, a little nervous.

“Do you still want to watch the movie?”

Dean grins again. Settling back against the sofa, he stretches out his legs and rests his elbows back on the cushions, and, on the floor or not, it’s the most space Castiel has ever seen him claim as his own. “That would be awesome,” he says, and the scent of his happiness floods the room.

Dean is, for lack of a better word, fucking giddy. 

Cas had settled onto the couch awkwardly, at first, holding himself stiff and straight through the opening scenes of the movie. Dean had been about a foot away from him, a carefully measured distance. He’d known that Cas would be uncomfortable with this, and he hadn’t wanted to push his boundaries any more than he already had by virtue of the situation alone.

But as time passed, the alpha lost some of that tension and leaned back into the cushions, more relaxed – and in turn, Dean leaned closer and closer, neither knowing they were doing it until Dean felt the alpha’s pant leg brush his arm and Cas had stiffened all over again. 

He’d pulled back carefully, leaving a little inch of space between them, and they both seemed to hold their breath. Dean doesn’t think that either of them knew what was happening onscreen for a good ten minutes. 

Then he’d grown some friggin’ cajones, leaned over, and rested his head against the side of the alpha’s knee. 

It had felt so instantly right that the tension had drained out of him like water through a pasta strainer, and after a moment Cas had let out a slow sigh and dropped his hand on Dean’s shoulder, something almost grateful in his touch. 

It’s the first time they’ve done this just because, rather than to calm Dean down. And Dean finds that he likes it anyway. 

Now, Cas is slowly carding his fingers through Dean’s hair, and Dean’s eyes are half closed, and he can feel sleep starting to wrap around him like a fuzzy, warm blanket. The characters may as well be speaking in Portuguese, because he has no idea what anyone on screen is saying. All he knows is that he’s comfortable, he’s safe, and he doesn’t have to be afraid. 

He can’t say when he falls asleep, but when he wakes up, Cas’s hand is resting on his shoulder again, heavy and warm. The movie has long since ended, the news chattering softly instead. He blinks up at the alpha, half groggy with sleep, and gives him what he knows must be a dopey smile. 

Cas had already been looking down at him, and his mouth softens into a smile to match. “So, was it as good as you remembered?” he teases gently. 

“Oh, yeah. Blockbuster hit for sure,” Dean muses, yawning, and the alpha chuckles. 

“We should both go to bed, I think.”

Dean hums and closes his eyes, not intending to move an inch. Cas’s hand starts combing through his hair again, and he kind of wishes that his touch would drop a little lower. He’s not about to ask for that again, though. Not any time soon.  

Right now, this is enough.