(Authors note and disclaimer please read this: this is a trans ftm!Dean/Castiel ficlet. I want to note that I am a cis woman and thus all mistakes are my own. I do not mean to offend anyone with this fanwork.)

He could not really pinpoint when the angel had begun to get under his skin. Maybe it was during their first encounter in the abandoned warehouse when he had pressed up into Dean's personal space. All cocky like most of the men had been in the hunter's life. Hell he would never deny being cocky himself.

Cocky but not always self assured. He was almost always doubting himself.

Which was probably since his resurrection he was constantly wondering how he had ended up with an angel following him. An angel who seemed to think him worthy of being pulled from the depths of hell. Even when he himself felt he should have stayed down there to rot.

It could have been how those crystalline sky blue eyes stared right into his own and seemed to look right into his soul…

Hell the angel had actually seen his soul when he was down in the pit. He grabbed it tight and pulled him back up from the fiery depths. Pieced his human body back together and shoved him right back in. Dean did not doubt that he has seen every inch of him, mapped it out practically.

But the way Castiel looked at him…it was almost as if he seemed to be seeing him for the first time. Like he was finally actually seeing him.

He had tense under the gaze, watching the way the man's head tilted to the side wordlessly. They both just stood in silence like that and Dean was waiting for him to say something, anything. Even if it was something like telling him that he should 'be a good girl and back down' that 'girls should not play with sharp things'. Especially after how the angel had so easily pulled Ruby's knife from his chest and threw it aside like it was just a splinter.

It was not going to be that simple though.

"Who are you…?"

"I'm the one who gripped you tight and raised you from perdition. I was sent to retrieve the righteous man from hell. Return him to earth so that he may stop the oncoming apocalypse."

Righteous man…

Man…

Maybe it was in that instant that Dean swore he was falling.

Man. Not woman. This was someone who had seen every inch of his body, his soul, him. Here he was not questioning what Dean wanted, his name his identity he just looked him in the eyes and…

It felt like his entire body was trembling from the overwhelming feeling of those words which he had to push down. He was strong and he would not let just a few words affect him like this. Even when just feeling a little reassured of his identity felt so good. It was like the high he got when Sam had called him Dean for the first time…when John had told him what a good son he was.

When Bobby had pat him on the back and said 'you did good boy'.

It was a sort of high that he did not want to come down from.

That…that was probably the instant when Cas had begun to get under his skin and Dean did not know if he really wanted him to leave.