Dearest Salem, happy birthday! I hope you've had the best day ever, and I hope you enjoy this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. To anyone else who may be reading, go check out Salem's stories at ThatWitchBitch xoxo, Nat

Shutting the door to your room in the bunker, you let out a heavy sigh, leaning against it. The hunt had been draining. Team Free Will and you had entered a vampire nest expected the five vamps that you had been tracking over the last week or so, but had been surprised instead with fifteen, four of which had just recently been changed. The surprise threw you all for a loop, and though you had all made it out of the nest safe, it was exhausting, and due to a bit of sloppiness on Dean's part, you were sporting a pretty good nick on the left side of your neck. You and a vamp were stuck in a gridlock, and when Dean swung a blade to cut off it's head, he hadn't stopped his trajectory in enough time, causing it to catch your neck as well. You were fine, technically, but you had decided to let Dean wallow in his shame for a bit. He had apologized the entire way home, but you were hopeful that he'd feel bad enough tomorrow to let you pick the places to eat and maybe, just maybe, get a chance to sit behind the wheel of Baby. Unlikely, but a girl could dream. And besides, in about forty-five minutes, it would technically be your birthday. You could definitely use that as leverage.

Crossing the room and leaning across the bed to flick on a lamp, you sat on the edge of the bed, tugging your hair out of the braid that you wore in it on hunts. Currently it was dark, but in the past it had been blonde, pink, blue, purple…You really should put blue in it again. It made your eyes look amazing. Then groaning, you pulled yourself off the bed, stepping on the backs of your shoes to pull them off, then unbuttoning and unzipping your jeans and kicking them across the floor, pulling your shirt over your head, you tossed it in the pile with the rest of your clothes. Then you stretched, standing up on your tiptoes, reaching above your head so that your spine and shoulders cracked. Perching on the edge of the bed again, you grabbed the notebook on your side table, not bothering to change into other clothes. You were alone in your room, you had had a rough day, and besides, you really should shower before putting on clean clothes, right? Besides. You had to journal what happened tonight before you forgot any details.

With your pen flying across the page, scratching across the surface of the paper, you got so lost in recounting the night that you almost didn't notice the sound of fluttering wings. Not until you heard Castiel stutter through a greeting. Raising your eyes from the paper, you grinned at the angel. Always so uncomfortable. Of course, it was then that you remembered how scantily clad you were. But instead of covering up, excusing yourself, yelling at Castiel to leave…You decided to stay where you were. It was your room, anyway. You didn't ask Cas to walk in uninvited, and he needed to learn that just because he was an angel didn't mean he got the right to just appear in people's rooms without permission. He never knew what he'd walk in on. Now was the perfect teaching moment.

"Hi, Castiel," you stated calmly as you returned to journaling, trying to pretend that you weren't overly aware of his every movement. Or rather, lack of movement.

"Salem," he said seriously, unmoving, "I-I didn't mean to…"

"It's fine," you replied simply, glancing back up with a sly grin. "It's not that much different from a bikini, is it?"

"I wouldn't know. I'm not quite sure what that is. I assume that you mean it's similar to what you-"

"Cas," you interrupted, holding up a hand to stop him from rambling, like he did when he was nervous. "No offense, but it's been a long day and tomorrow's kind of a big deal, so why are you here?"

Silence for a moment. He stood unmoving, so still you had half a mind to stand up and check to see if he was breathing. Maybe hold a mirror under his nose like you heard some new parents did when their infants were incredibly still in their cribs. And then he spoke. "I wanted to check on you. I saw you get cut during the fight, but I had to leave and didn't get a chance to ask if you were okay."

"Yeah, I noticed when I looked up and there was a room full of dead vampires, and no Cas. But I'm fine. Really."

"Are you?"

It was a simple question, one you should be able to answer easily, but there was something about the way that he was watching you that you weren't used to. What was it? But when you heard the way he sucked in a breath of air, and the way it shuttered when it exited his lips, the way his blue eyes seemed to be filling his face, the way his dark hair swooped across his forehead. And the trench coat. Jesus Christ. Prior to meeting Castiel, trench coats were creepy. But an angel in a trench coat had become your deepest fantasy. The suit and the skinny tie that was always tied a little funny, so that it hung at a weird angle…He was so adorable. And the look on his face, you had finally identified. It was lust.

Immediately, your heart began slamming against your ribcage, so hard it hurt. And you knew he could hear it, because his face turned red and his eyes shifted to the floor. And then, because it was your birthday soon, you decided to give yourself a gift. Castiel. Closing your notebook and putting it back on the side table with the pen, you unfolded yourself from the bed slowly, testing this new found seductiveness that you had decided to unveil. For a moment, you considered pulling a Dean; throwing out your best flirtatious lines, complete with eye contact and winking. But it wasn't you. Dean's style worked for him but you were more…secretive. Crossing the room slowly to close the gap between you and the angel, you stopped just six inches short of pressing yourself against his chest.

When Castiel raised his eyes from the floor to meet yours, you offered a shy smile, blinking slowly, before gathering your hair and draping it around your right shoulder, exposing the cut on the left side of your neck, as well as your shoulders. The softly, just above a whisper, you said simply, "Castiel? Fix me?"

You could hear his breath catch in his throat. You could see the way his pupils shifted. And you could see his fingertips shake slightly as he reached forward to brush them across the cut. It healed instantly, of course, but he left his fingers against your neck, trailing them across your shoulder and down your arm. Then before you could figure out what to do with your hands, he replaced the places where his fingertips touched with his lips. His breath was hot against your neck and shoulder, sending chills racing down your spine, goosebumps following his lips. When he turned to look at you, his eyes uncertain, you grasped his face with both hands, pulling it to yours. When your lips collided, a million sparks flew. Fireworks erupted in your mind and you had to lock your hands behind his neck to keep from falling to pieces.

And then your hands that had been locked behind his neck were pushing off his coat, the suit jacket, pulling at the tie to get the knot to come undone. You learned just how quickly you could unbutton a dress shirt and push it off of his shoulders, while his hands fumbled with unbuckling his belt and pushing his pants off of his hips. But when you hooked an arm around his neck, and he an arm around your waist, he froze with his lips just a fraction of a centimeter away from yours. You could feel his breath, but you couldn't taste him anymore. And the frustration boiled in the pit of your stomach.

"Cas?"

His eyebrows furrowed into concern as he focused on your eyes. He didn't speak for so long that you were afraid he had tuned into Angel Radio and was getting some sort of S.O.S. and before you'd be able to pull him back, he'd flutter away and you'd be left disappointed and sexually frustrated, with the ghost of his fingertips on your skin and his taste on your tongue. And then he spoke, and when he did, it broke your heart for him. "I don't know what to do."

And what were you supposed to tell him? Go for it? For what? The poor man had only seen a few videos, only one of which seemed to stick in his mind. The Pizza Man. A thought dawned on you. Playing with the hair at the back of his neck, you said softly, "You know how sometimes your vessel side kicks in, and you find yourself doing more human actions than angel ones?" He nodded in response and you stood on your tiptoes to kiss him gently, and then whispered against his lips, "Let it happen."

Instantaneously, he gripped your waist with both hands, pushing you back towards the bed. You complied, dropping back against the blankets, your hair falling in a fan around your face. Castiel crawled between your legs, pushing them apart with his knee and he lowered himself over your frame, kissing you so fiercely, you could feel yourself shaking. His tongue flicked across your lip and you opened your mouth, allowing him access while his fingers trailed across your stomach, then your waistline, his fingertips slipping just under the waistband of your underwear. When your hips lifted to meet his touch, he smiled against your lips, and you had to fight the urge to laugh. This was all ridiculous. You and an angel?

Castiel slipped your underwear off your hips, flicking them across the room to join the rest of the clothes that were flung in the open space. Then he turned back to you, placing his lips back against yours as he carefully slipped a finger in. Moaning against his lips, he began pumping slowly, carefully. As you became more aroused, he added another finger, grinning when your moaning intensified. For someone who said he didn't know what he was going, he was already off to a damn good start. As he began pumping faster, his fingers curling and uncurling, his thumb rubbing against your clit, you fumbled with the waistband of his boxers, wrapping your hand around his member, matching your pace with his. It was his turn to groan, and the sound nearly sent you over the edge.

Wrapping your free hand around his neck, tilting your head up to meet his, he readjusted, replacing his fingers with the head of his dick. His eyes met yours, and when you nodded, he pushed forward slowly, gently. As his hips found a pattern, you matched the pace, your breaths getting shorter and shorter, panting more than breathing. And the pit of your stomach was doing somersaults, excited and nervous and pleased. So pleased. Right when you thought your breath couldn't get any shorter, your heart couldn't beat any faster, your world couldn't spin any crazier, Castiel picked up the pace and your nails scraped down his back as you pleaded, moaning his name between the words "Please" and "Don't stop".

And when he hit the right spot, you cried out, clinging to him as tightly as you could, riding out your orgasm as you fought back tears. When he finished not long after, he kissed you before pulling out, dropping to the bed beside you and pulling you against his chest. Reaching over to wipe tears, he asked softly, "Are you okay?"

Words failed. You were more than okay. You weren't crying because it hurt or because it was wrong, or because it was uncomfortable. The entire thing had been like a religious experience. Your tears were the emotions that had been building steadily over the past six months, finally letting themselves free. As Castiel kissed your shoulder, pausing only to nuzzle you slightly, he laughed and whispered in your ear, "Happy birthday, Salem."