Like Cats and Dogs

Chapter 19

"You don't know my dad. What he'd do to protect the Pack. But I promise you, Cas. I promise. I'll talk to him when I go home. And the next time I see you, we'll be mated."

"Okay," Cas breathes, softening a little bit against him. Dean feels like a crushing weight has been lifted off his chest, like he can breathe again.

"And I'm sorry. For dragging you through this shit. I'm so fucking sorry."

Cas kisses him then, soft and warm, and Dean doesn't feel like he deserves it but he takes it anyway.

"I am sorry for letting my hormones get the best of me."

Dean pulls him closer and nuzzles his neck. "Don't apologize for that. Don't apologize for anything. This is on me."

Cas hums and curls around him, which gives Dean a scary amount of relief.

"And Dean?"

"Yeah, Cas?"

"If that beta, or anyone else for that matter, puts their hands on you ever again," he says, his voice calm and even like he's talking about the damn weather, "I will remove their lungs from their chest cavity and you will be exiled from this tree for as long as I see fit." Cas pulls back and places one last searing kiss on Dean's lips, gripping his nape with long fingers as he does. "Clear?"

Dean suppresses a smile. There's his fiery little cat.

"Crystal."

They sit on those stairs, wildly uncomfortable as they are, just holding on to each other for a long time. They kiss occasionally, but mostly they just touch each other innocently. Cas tracing the freckles on Dean's shoulders, Dean running a finger along the lines of muscle on Cas' back. They don't even really talk, not until it's gotten late and Cas mumbles something about wanting to sleep. Dean stands easily, his knot long since shrunk, carrying Cas up the stairs with him. Cas wraps all six feet of himself around Dean's torso, his purr almost inaudible.

They fall asleep under a pile of blankets, hidden away from the world, Cas' back against Dean's chest and their limbs tangled together. Dean empties his mind and focuses on his mate, letting everything else fade away. Until the sun comes up, until the raw exposed nerves have been soothed by a night of sleeping in each other's arms, nothing else exists. Not for Dean. There are no humans, no opposing packs, no dangers to his mate. For right now they are safe, his wolf can protect them.

Everything else can wait until morning.

***

Castiel untangles himself from Dean's side, pulling on pants, shuffling over to the window, and sitting against the wall. This way he can lean his chin against the windowsill and watch the trees, his eyes following two squirrels that are jumping around.

He's tired, in a way that he knows isn't physical. He's glad that he managed to vaguely talk to Dean last night, about how hard this is on him, but he doesn't feel any better. Though Castiel isn't angry at Dean anymore, he's still frustrated. Having a mate while not really having a mate is wrecking havoc on his instincts, which he doesn't enjoy being influenced by in the first place. Castiel had certainly underestimated how hard this would be, but he'd also underestimated how many obstacles would get in their way. He thinks, had it not been for the kidnappings, this might have been sorted out a while ago. As it is, he and Dean have a lot to talk about.

He knows, realistically, that he should have told Dean about what was happening after Samandriel disappeared. Though even then, none of them had been sure that there was anything going on, let alone that humans were involved. Castiel had only become privy to that specific piece of information recently, after Rachel was taken. He wonders sort of absently if the wolves know anything about it, anything about the humans, about what they're doing, that they aren't telling the Arch. Though if they do, he doubts Dean knows about it.