Work Text:
Dean shoved the book away from him. It bounced on the couch cushion, his place lost as the book closed on the second bounce. There was something sizzling in the kitchen, and he could hear Cas pause from stirring it, an unspoken question: what was wrong, and what did Dean need to fix it?
“I give up,” Dean called into the kitchen. Cas resumed stirring. Dean could imagine his face, the raised eyebrows, the tight-lipped grin, the ever-patient “I see” coming from him in a quiet hum.
“I really mean it,” he called again. He scowled at the book. “I can’t get it.”
He heard Cas switch the stove off, the knob clicking loudly, dinner still sizzling with residual heat, and then Cas was in the doorway, wiping his hands with a dishtowel and swinging it back onto his shoulder. Dean could definitely see the look now, as Cas folded his arms and leaned against the frame of the kitchen entrance.
“I see.”
Dean groaned. He hated when Cas did this, the calm voice and kind eyes and the listening and the gentle understandings….
“You’re going to talk me back into it, aren’t you? You can’t. This is it, I give up. There is no going back after this.”
Cas picked the book up and sat on the couch next to Dean. “Norton Anthology of World Literature? What class is this for?”
“A gen-ed English course. Supposed to be an introduction to literature so that we go into the world with a “basic understanding of cultural literature” or some bullshit like that.”
Cas chuckled. “Oh, yes. Because that’s very relevant to degree in automotive engineering.”
“Shut up.”
“What’s the reading?”
“It’s some Shakespeare poem, “Shall I Compare Thee” to…something.”
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,” Cas said softly. “Thou art more lovely and temperate.”
“You know this poem?”
Chas shrugged. “Shakespeare was one of the few non-religious things we could read growing up. I don’t think my father caught wind of a lot of the innuendos, or probably thought that they were way more innocent than what Shakespeare intended."
“Huh. Not in this one. I have to memorize it for my final, and I just can’t do it. I give up. I don’t even get what the hell he’s supposed to be saying.”
Cas found the poem in the book, read it over, and gave a small, wry grin. “You know, Dean. I could help you memorize it.”
“How?”
Cas turned so he was facing Dean, eyes on his. Dean didn’t trust this face. This was the Devious-Acts-Castiel face, and it only led to bad things.
“Let me show you,” Cas said, and he leaned in, touching foreheads with Dean, then sliding his head over so that he was breathing in Dean’s ear. There were goosebumps all over Dean’s arms now, and his stomach was coiled with anticipation.
“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?/Thou are more lovely and more temperate.”
Cas paused, brushing his lips against Dean’s jaw, running his teeth over the skin between there and his neck, pulling it. Dean braced himself with a hand on the edge of the couch.
“Cas—“
“Rough hands do shake the darling buds of May/And summer’s lease hath all too short a date,” Cas murmured into his neck, running his own hands (not nearly as rough as Dean’s, but getting there from hard days at the beach) across Dean’s chest, down his sides, gripping his shirt loosely and pulling Dean closer, nearly into his lap. Cas let one side of Dean go, reaching behind and dragging his fingers up Dean’s back, up his neck, grasping at Dean’s hair.
“Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,/And often his gold complexion dimmed./By chance, or nature’s changing course untrimmed;” Cas pulled back, stared at Dean, past Dean, into Dean. His eyes scoured Dean’s face, as if memorizing it, tracing the curve of Dean’s lips, the tilt of the jaw, the exact placement of each freckle.
“But thy eternal summer shall not fade.”
“Dammit, Cas, hurry up and finish the damn poem,” Dean breathed, chest heaving, hands trembling with the utter anticipation of what Cas was leading up to. Cas nipped at his neck, marking a path down to that corner of skin between where his neck met his collarbone.
“God, Cas, I—“
“Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,” Cas continued, pushing Dean back against the couch roughly, dragging his hips against Dean’s, maneuvering so that he was laying on top of Dean with only his arms to lift him up. His head dipped down, his breath tracing the lines of Dean’s neck, teasing him. Dean’s back arched, craving more, needing more than hot air against his skin.
“Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,/While in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.” Cas moved his head down, backing up, shoving Dean’s shirt up and off of him, replacing the clothes with wet kisses that trailed down to the tops of Dean’s low-set jeans. Dean groaned, his hands tangled in Cas’s hair as he kissed Dean’s hipbones, Dean writhing underneath him.
“Goddammit, Cas, you’re driving me crazy.” Dean wrapped his legs around Cas, pulling him closer. “Finish the fucking poem.”
Cas’s eyes shot up to meet Dean’s as soon as he said “fucking,” almost in a promise, definitely in a “oh, just you wait” grin, tongue slipping out between lips to taste Dean’s skin, to mark a place for his lips to touch, to assign a spot for his teeth to tug at the skin, to suck it hard enough to leave a mark, to leave Dean with noises in his throat not quite groan, not quite gasp, but a lustful mix of the two.
Cas pulled himself back up, lowering himself to lay flush against Dean, with Dean’s hands slipping under his shirt, fingers clutching his back.
“So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,/So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.”
Dean looked up at Cas. “Is that the poem?”
“That’s the poem.”
“Thank god. Book stays here, you come with me, I’m never gonna remember the damn thing.”
Cas chuckled and pulled Dean up too forcefully against him as he stood up. “Looks like I’ll just have to recite it again, then.”
Cas recited it eleven times across the top of the bed, three against the wall, and made sure to shoehorn five more on the couch. The class laughed when Dean recited the poem for the oral final, red-faced and with hands shoved in pockets. When Dean brought home his solid B in the class, Cas celebrated with an anthology of Shakespearean poetry and a lascivious look.
Dean memorized the whole book.