Chapter 100: Chapter 100: Barnacle is officially dating

Arion’s expression did not change.

That, more than anything, should have warned Dean.

Because the prince held the look for one beat too long – thoughtful, grave, as if receiving tactical feedback from a superior officer – and then, instead of stepping back like a normal man who had just been told he was catastrophically bad at courtship, he simply… folded.

Right into Dean.

It was so abrupt and so unceremonious that Dean had to grab his shoulders on instinct to keep them both upright as Arion returned, with absolutely no shame whatsoever, to the exact state Dean had already diagnosed days earlier.

Barnacle.

Arion tucked himself against Dean’s shoulder and throat as if that settled the matter. One arm wrapped around Dean’s waist, then the other, clinging with the unwavering conviction of a man who had listened carefully, accepted the terms, and chosen to interpret them in the most inconvenient way possible.

Dean stared at the wall over Arion’s shoulder.

Then he laughed.

He tried not to. He failed immediately.

“That is not dating,” Dean said, because apparently someone in this room had to maintain civilization.

Arion’s voice came muffled against his shoulder, warm and completely unrepentant. “This is pre-dating.”

Dean barked another laugh, shocked into it. “That is not a real category.”

“It is now.”

Dean shifted his grip from Arion’s shoulders to the back of his neck, fingers threading into dark hair with helpless familiarity. Arion made a low, pleased sound and tightened his arms by a fraction.

Dean exhaled and tilted his head just enough to brush his lips against Arion’s cheek – a quick, soft kiss that should have been harmless.

Arion went still anyway.

Dean felt the response before he saw it: the subtle fresh bloom of vetiver rolling through the room like a second tide, richer and darker than before, immediately trying to drown every other scent in existence.

Dean pulled back half an inch and narrowed his eyes. “Absolutely not.”

Arion lifted his head just enough to look at him, gold eyes too bright, mouth curved with infuriating calm. “What?”

Dean gestured vaguely to the air between them. “That. Whatever this is. Turn it down.”

Arion blinked once, innocent in a way that should have been illegal. “My pheromones?”

“No, the weather,” Dean said flatly. “Yes, your pheromones. This suite is drowning. I think the furniture is bonded to you now.”

Arion’s mouth twitched.

Dean kissed his cheek again, because he was weak and because the expression was worth it, then put a hand against Arion’s jaw to hold his face still when the scent thickened in direct response.

“Slow down,” Dean said, softer now but no less firm. “I mean it. I like breathing.”

Arion considered him for a long beat, still wrapped around him, still shamelessly attached.

Then he did the worst possible thing.

He shook his head once, small and definite.

Dean stared. “You’re saying no?”

“Yes,” Arion said, with the serene confidence of a man refusing a treaty revision.

Dean’s brows climbed. “To my lungs?”

“To this,” Arion said, and his arms tightened slightly around Dean’s waist, his gaze dropping for a heartbeat to Dean’s mouth before returning to his eyes. “I spent years forcing control when I was alone. You are here. You said what you said. I am already behaving better than I want to.”

Dean opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Hated that this was both outrageous and, infuriatingly, honest.

Arion leaned in again, not for Dean’s mouth this time, just to press the side of his face back against Dean’s shoulder, settling there with a soft exhale that sounded suspiciously like victory.

“Arion,” Dean warned.

“Mhm.”

“That was not the agreement.”

Another soft exhale. “I know.”

Dean looked at the ceiling as if appealing to a higher court.

The vetiver was everywhere now – warm, dark, threaded with restraint and possession, and something almost embarrassingly content. Dean could still pick up his own scent beneath it – lemon-mint and heat and the lingering pulse of adrenaline – but Arion’s was swallowing the room inch by inch.

He should have pushed him away.

He should have insisted.

Instead, Dean found himself smoothing a hand down Arion’s back, because apparently his body had joined the enemy and no longer reported to command.

“You are impossible,” he muttered.

Arion made a pleased sound against his shoulder. “You’ve said.”

Dean’s fingers tightened once in the fabric at Arion’s back. “And if any of your physicians walks in here right now, he’ll write both our names in a medical report and a curse.”

Arion’s tone stayed lazy and entirely too satisfied. “One already curses me professionally.”

Dean snorted despite himself.

For a few seconds, neither of them moved. The room stayed heavy with vetiver and warm sunlight and the aftermath of too much honesty. Dean could feel Arion breathing against him, slower now, the last feral edge gone, replaced by something calming and no less intense.

’Barnacle,’ Dean thought, with helpless affection and immediate irritation at the affection.

He tipped his head down and pressed one more quick kiss to Arion’s temple, mostly because he wanted to and partly because he suspected it would make the scent spike again, and proving himself right was one of life’s few reliable pleasures.

It did.

Dean groaned. “See? This is exactly what I’m talking about.”

Arion’s shoulders shook once with a laugh, quiet and warm where he was tucked against Dean.

“Date me properly,” Dean said, trying for stern and landing somewhere near fondly exasperated. “With oxygen. In a room that does not smell like you’re trying to colonize it.”

Arion finally lifted his head, just enough to meet Dean’s eyes, still not letting go.

“I can do the date,” he said.

Dean lifted a brow. “And the oxygen?”

Arion glanced around the suite as if assessing strategic losses, then looked back at him with shameless honesty.

“I don’t want to.”

Dean stared at him for one beat.

Then he laughed again, soft and doomed, and pushed lightly at his shoulder in a gesture that meant absolutely nothing because Arion didn’t budge at all.

“Barnacle,” Dean said.

Arion’s smile turned slow and bright and terribly pleased. “Yours.”

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