A/N

First off, I just have to say that none of these characters are mine, and, unfortunately, neither is the art.

Hey, y'all! Welcome to my mind. Most of these stories grow from day dreams. Yup, you heard me. I'm that obsessed. Supernatural (and therefore Destiel) is relatively new to me, but as soon as I discovered both, I fell in love with both.

Like I said in the summary, I'm not sure how many of these shorties I'll be able to write, what with life and novel-writing and short-story competitions and especially Camp NaNo happening tomorrow, so I might write three total, I might write seven, I might write more. I'm transient like that xD

In any case, however much or little I write, I really hope y'all enjoy, because that's what these will be meant for, indulgent happiness.

Unless I say otherwise, these stories aren't set in any particular season of the show and don't contain spoilers.

Thanks for reading!

P.S. My #1 goal is to write a good, heartfelt story while keeping the characters IN CHARACTER. If I succeed, please let me know, and if I don't, please tell me how I can improve. And, obviously, if you have any other comments, good or bad, I'd love to hear them. Thanks!

Castiel studied the vague shapes of passing trees and hills and distant houses in the dim lights of the moon and the reflectors passing orange, orange, orange on the two-lane highway. It was dark; it was late, actually, and he didn't know exactly why he was there, in the impala with Dean. There were other things he could be doing, people he could be saving, demons he could be killing, and yet he didn't leave. He sat in silence, staring glassy-eyed out the window, somehow still aware of each sideways glance the hunter threw his way.

"You ok, Cas?" he asked, after a while, hands faintly flexing on the steering wheel.

"I'm fine, Dean." Castiel replied, not turning from his view. That answer was mostly true. He was physically ok. Unfortunately, he had realized about exactly an hour ago that the strange things his vessel allowed him to feel were what humans called love. And that was… That was not good. Probably. He wasn't sure.

Turning his head a fraction or two, Cas let his eyes slide left, just enough to make out the contours of Dean Winchester's face. It was a strong face, tanned and masculine and generally so readable. It was a face Cas had studied and scrutinized, trying to understand. It wasn't til later it occurred to him he may have been studying it for other reasons. For fascination. For memorization. To recall to his mind when days and weeks passed without physical nearness

"You're about as silent as a smoked corpse tonight, buddy. There… anything… you wanna talk about?" Dean's head bobbed as he spoke, and he glanced over at Cas, his left eyebrow rising a little higher than the right.

Cas looked at Dean a moment, then faced the road and lightly rubbed his palms on his trenchcoat. "There was something I wanted to talk about…" He stopped.

"You… want to tell me what that was?" Dean questioned, his comical eyebrow-raise reappearing.

Cas exhaled slowly through his nostrils. "I don't know," he answered truthfully. Dean let pass a moment or two of silence, nodding slowly, watching the road, and seemingly thinking to himself. Castiel let his gaze wander as his thready heartbeat made itself known in his chest. "What would you do," he suddenly asked, a thought occurring to him, "if you knew this were your last night on earth?"

"Spend it with you and Sammy," Dean answered immediately. Then cocked his head to one side and added, "Get laid, probably. Drink, definitely. Pie, of course."

"Of course," Cas replied with amusement.

Dean's eyes flickered to him, then out at the road again, tilting the wheel left as the road gently curved. "… Why do you ask?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "Just curious I guess."

"What would you do?" Dean looked at him and something in the curve of his lips expressed the worry he was trying very hard to conceal.

"Spend it with you," Cas answered.

Dean studied him for a long moment, then looked away and swallowed, his throat bobbing with saliva, hands flexing more noticeably this time. "Cas," he muttered. "Are you in trouble? Is there something I need to know?"

He was worried. And no wonder, after what Cas had probably just implied. "No. No, Dean, I'm not in any danger. No more than usual, anyway." He looked at his hands in his lap. At his fingernails, chipped and dirty, and wondered how he had managed to do that to them. Dean shifted next to him, and Cas turned his lips with thought. "It's just that I've realized something very recently, and I don't know what to do with the information." Even though it when it was about Dean Castiel found himself seeking Dean's advice.

"Ok… Is it a good somethin' or a bad somethin'?"

"That's the problem. I'm not sure." He focused on Dean and his lean, battle-scarred body. His strong jaw had just the showings of stubble from a long day gone unshaven. His broad, round shoulders were still defined even beneath his signature leather jacket. His knuckled hands and long fingers curled around the wheel, and Cas imagined a world in which this man could love him back. The thought did something strange to the dark hairs on his arms and legs, like his skin was prickling, similar to the way he had felt one day in northern Maine when it was very cold. An involuntary shiver coursed through his chest. His body felt agitated somehow, like he needed to move and expel the excess energy. He didn't, however. Besides sliding his hands on his thighs a second time.

"You're not making this easy, Cas," the sound of Dean's growling voice shook Castiel from his distraction, but he didn't turn and didn't reply. He stared out the window at the passing trees. Dean sighed. "This realization… Is it… dangerous? Would it hurt anyone? Yourself?"

Cas' reflection in the glass tilted its head, its eyebrows scrunching as it considered. "I don't believe so… There could be some… minor… personal harm, but nothing… life-threatening."

"Nothing life-threatening?" Dean confirmed.

"No." The angel glanced at him.

"Alright then…" Dean's head lulled forward. "Alright then, I think you should act on it, see where it takes you."

The angel's heart did a strange fluttery thing. "You think I should act on it," he confirmed.

"With what you've told me… yeah, Cas. That's what I would do."

"I see…" Castiel blinked and willed his hands still before he could rub his palms a third time. "Thank you."

"No problem. Tell me how it turns out."

"Dean."

"Yeah?"

Castiel licked his lips. "Would you stop the car, please?"

"What—here? Why?"

"I… will explain in a moment."

With a shift in his shoulderblades halfway between a confused shrug and a hunch of annoyance, Dean complied with the angel's strange request, glancing in his rearview mirror, then easing off the gas and turning the wheel a bit to the right, hitting the road's gravely shoulder and bouncing along a few hundred feet before slowing to a total stop. He turned the gears to park, and then glanced over at Castiel in his seat. "Now what?" he asked.

Cas' lips parted ever-so-slightly. Now… he was supposed to act. Yet it was rather difficult to move. He looked to Dean, and Dean raised his eyebrows, and Cas clenched his hands. Act. Flying from the car with his angel wings, Castiel disappeared from his seat for a split second.

Then reappeared on Dean's side of the car, his knees in the seat on either side of Dean's legs, effectively straddling him.

Startled, Dean freaked, his hands gripping Cas' waist and pushing him back before he even knew what the hell was happening. "Cas! Goddammit! What the hell!" he swore, alarm apparent in his face.

He breathed in quick, jerky breaths, his nerves rattled. Understandably. Stupid, the angel chided himself. With faintly shaking hands, he raised his palms and touched the hunter's jaw while Dean stared up at him, his mouth parted, still rasping slightly from adrenaline. The moonlight just caught the green pools of his eyes, and that strange prickling of Cas' arms happened again, like cool ice down four appendages, yet strangely pleasurable. He liked the feeling. His lips twerked with the smallest smile, and he slid his hands upwards, grazing on the light stubble of Dean's jaw, then finding his ears and stopping there, holding Dean's face in the palms of his hands.

Something in the Winchester started to shift, the fright and aggravation disappearing, replaced with something else, something deep and indecipherable while the hands that still gripped his waist changed from stiff and hostile to… somehow strangely tense and soft at the same time.

Finally understanding the term heart in throat, Cas braced himself and leaned slowly forward. Dean's eyes followed him, his eyelids hooding as he got close. The hunter's breath was quieter now but still just as quick. He didn't stop Castiel. He didn't say a word, so Cas tilted his head to the right and pressed closer, letting his eyes fall shut and roll back in his skull as his mouth met Dean's. Slowly, slowly, gently, but not light. Soft and moist with his dampened lips, but not light. Dean moved against him, kissing him back, and Cas' fingers curled, his thumbs stroking the soft skin before Dean's ears. The hands on his waist tightened, holding him, drawing him closer. Soft became deep, their mouths moving in sync, their lips melding, crushing, their tongues tasting. Slow became urgent, gentle hard, and Cas found that Dean's arms were slowly entwining around his back and locking and trapping him close, and Cas' hands were crawling into the glinting brown of Dean's hair. His body shifted forward, his fingers tingling, his pulse thump-thump-thumping in his chest. A growl vibrated up Dean's throat and through Cas' lips and something inside of him went soft with need. But his lungs tightened, and with mutual breathlessness they broke apart, separating a few thin inches, their lips red and wet with saliva.

Dean stared at him, and Castiel looked at Dean and shuddered, his hands twitching, almost trembling in Dean's mussed hair. He found it difficult to think, to order his thoughts, to keep his eyes from dropping down to lips, and when he finally tried to attempt speech, Dean interrupted him with his mouth, reaching forward, his neck stretching, his arms tightening until their lips met, and another sort of desperate confirmation-of-reality kiss took place. The swelling of Cas' heart made him smile through it, grin almost, hardly holding back some type of giddy laugh. When they broke apart, Dean looked at his smile, his eyes, with some strange sense of wonderment, and Castiel's heart couldn't take it. He curled forward, his face hiding in the crevice between Dean's neck and shoulder. "I love you," he said against the skin there, but the words came out quivery and croaked, and he didn't know if Dean heard him so he said it again, his body tightening, octopus-like around Dean.

Something like a shiver chased its way down the hunter's back. Cas could feel it happen, he was so close. And then Dean was gripping him harder. "Your… your revelation?" he growled, his voice a little hoarse just as well.

"Yes," Cas nodded in his neck.

"Thank God."

"For what?" Cas queried in his delirious, befuddled mind.

"Thank God I told you to act."

The strangest sensation of bubbly warmth spreading in his chest concerned Cas for a moment, before he realized it was another of those recently discovered very good feelings, and contented himself, cuddling closer to the human beneath him.

"Cas?" Dean whispered. "Look at me."

Eyes opening, Cas drew back enough for Dean to see his eyes. The hunter stared deep, his green, shimmery eyes switching between Cas'. A jerky smile twitched up his lips, and he said, "I love you back."