Warm smell of a freshly baked pie is the last thing Dean expects to get tangled into the bunker's air. It's a feeble, barely there sensation, somewhere at the back of his nose. His pie-starved mind must be playing tricks on him, he decides, and brushes it off with ease. He returns his attention to the gun in his hand, as he takes it apart for cleaning in the quiet of his bedroom.
It doesn't take long, though, until he has to pause his work, his head perks up. Oh, the smell is there, seeping in through the door, enveloping his senses. He whiffs carefully at first, squints at the oddity, suspicious. With the next, long breath he drops all precaution. He takes it in deep and slow, savors the crisp aroma of hot crust, lets it fill him up to the brim, as it crashes with the sweetest note of apples and cinnamon.
As his eyelids fall and his lungs burst, full of volatile heaven, Dean's close to believing he peacefully died somewhere along and climbed upstairs without noticing. Still, smelling the thing's not the same as eating the thing and if leaving the room means jumping on his Axis Mundi, he's more than ready for the seventy two virgin pies.
Before the aroma can turn out to be a daydream, Dean drops the half-cleaned parts and slips off the bed. The corridor outside still looks like a corridor, but more importantly, still smells like a bakery. The sweetness, light in the air, intensifies with every step he takes toward where his nose leads him.
It's not much of a surprise that the smell has its origin in the kitchen - even though the fact it managed to reach his room from here sounds hardly plausible. What is a surprise, however, is the view Dean encounters as he reaches the door.
There is the pie, for one thing, sitting in its form at the top of the counter. From where Dean stands, it looks as good as it smells, with apples peaking out between the stripes of perfectly golden crust. However, juxtaposed, the pie quickly shifts into the back of Dean's mind, when his eyes fall on Cas.
His dark jeans and blue shirt wouldn't ring this odd if Cas wasn't so much of a stained t-shirt and tracksuit pants kind of guy whenever there's no need to dress up. And God knows, even then, especially when the case requires an FBI suit and tie, Cas turns into the whiniest fashion anarchist, calling out the pointlessness of petty human customs pertaining to clothes.
Cas dressed smart casual strictly casually just isn't a thing that can happen without raising a bit of suspicion. And that's when he's not wrapped in a bow of an apron which is now shielding his clothes from the swirling cloud of sugar powder that he coats the pie with. His right palm is shaking the strainer gently, to lay down an even layer, right to the edge and not too thick.
His movements are gentle, his attention entirely focused on his work, he doesn't seem to notice the intruder watching him from the doorway. Dean, on his part, remains still, taking in his slow breaths, delighted, and letting them out silently.
At last, Cas decides the pie can't get any better and puts his weapon down into the sink. He licks off the remaining powder off his fingers, before reaching up to his neck to untie the stripe of the apron.
"Are you just gonna stand there?" he asks without turning and his voice, suddenly loud in the cozy quiet of the kitchen, startles Dean.
"Uh, hey Cas," Dean mumbles lamely, passing the distance between him and Cas. "What's up with the pie?"
Before Cas can turn around, Dean has his arms wrapped around his middle, his nose pressed to his hair. The soft locks soaked in the smell: the cinnamon, the crust and Dean can't help but smile against Cas's neck - the aroma has gotten intoxicating, mixed with the smell of Cas.
"Just something I wanted to try," Cas replies, giving in to Dean's embrace for a moment, then reflecting. "You're wrinkling my shirt," he adds, trying to pry Dean's locked fingers apart.
Dean would grumble something along "fuck that" any other time and keep kissing the sweetness off Cas's skin, but he can get back to that later, sprawled lazily in the couch, after his stomach's filled up with the crust and apples, so he lets go.
Cas has still got the apron hanging from his waist, which, Dean must admit, gives him a sexy, househusband vibe. Briefly, Dean licks his lips, trying to push away the thought of how easily this moment could turn into a beginning of steamy porn.
"It smells incredible, Cas," he says, shifting closer to the treasure sitting on the counter. "How'd you learn how to make it?"
"From the internet," Cas answers with a smug grin. The next second, his grin falls. "I just hope it tastes as good as it smells."
That would be disappointing as hell, Dean thinks, but doesn't say it out loud. Instead, he opens the counter and pulls out two plates.
"We won't know until we try," he announces, setting them down and reaching for the knife, but Cas stops him.
"No, I've just taken it out," he explains with an expression so serious as if he's gotten the doctor degree in pies overnight. "We have to wait 'til it cools down."
"Whoah, no way!" Dean protests, shaking Cas's palm off his forearm. "That'd be sacrilege."
He picks out the sharpest knife in the drawer, slides its tip across the middle of the pie, sketching a thin line in the white powder. Cas still tries to fight.
"But the recipe said-"
"Well, the recipe said wrong," Dean cuts him off. He's got the even eight slices planned out, although he anticipates some trouble due to the temperature of the stuffing. "I'll tell you a little secret, Cas. Sure, pies served cold are awesome, but…" he pauses, as he thrusts the knife in, to let the crunch of broken crust resound in its whole glory. "There's literally nothing better than a pie straight from the oven. Not even sex," he assures.
Cas doesn't seem to like that opinion or decides he's got something to prove. He's right behind Dean in a second, his body pressed along Dean's back, his palm firm on Dean's hip.
"Really?" he purrs into Dean's ear, deliberately stretching the syllables."Not even with me?"
His breath is warm on Dean's cheek. His palm slides down Dean's thigh and to the inside, teasing, dangerously close to the seam of his pants. Dean holds his breath, stilling himself against the overload of the senses. He would have let himself go, shift his attention to the buttons of Cas's shirt and leading them to the closest, pieless surface if he didn't know better. Cas has had it planned to nice, with his shirt too ironed for play before eating. He's only playing dirty to get the response he'll like.
But there's nothing wrong with enjoying it a little while it lasts and making it last longer with his tongue tied. He holds on to the edge of the counter and the steel handle of the knife, as he tilts his head back to give Cas full access to his neck.
Cas doesn't catch the bait, but Dean's cock surely does, throbbing against the caress of Cas's thumb. If they go on like that for a moment more, Dean's so not gonna try this pie while it's hot.
"Let's say that's a tie," he murmurs finally, defeated.
He's answered by a soft chuckle against his skin.
"That's better," Cas says, as he pulls away, leaving Dean to reconsider his life choices.
The next cuts he makes through the crispy crust and the mushy insides do lose some of their excitement. He separates the slices quickly and lays them down on the plates to finally move on to the best part: to letting the sweetness fill up the hole of Cas's touch.
There's a rattle of glass bottles and, as Dean turns to set the plates on the table, Cas holds up triumphantly two beers. The drops of warm air cling to their cooled surface right away.
"I nearly forgot," Cas says, sitting down on the opposite of Dean, setting the beers down.
He reaches to his jeans pocket, while Dean opens the bottles.
"Yeah? This looks more than perfect to me."
"Try now," Cas replies with a gentle smile. He flips the lighter, lights the long candles adorning the table.
If Dean's red lamps haven't been all on yet, now they're flashing and wailing like sirens in the nighttime. With a great strain, fitting a person who never, ever celebrates special dates, Dean goes through every occasion he can remember and comes up with squat. Unless, that is, his re-birthday requires candle light other than that on a cake (though he's been happier without any sort of fire imaginary on that day).
"Alright, Mr. Romantic, what is it?" He gives up. "Spit it out, what's the occasion?"
Cas tilts his head to the side with a smile which luckily doesn't stand for "how can you not remember, you asshole." Much more of an "I know something that you don't."
"Try it, first," Cas proposes, instead of an answer. His own fork hovers over the corner of the pie, betraying his anxiety towards the outcome of his own creation.
"It's not like, an anniversary or something, right?" Dean takes a chance, loading a big chunk of the pie on his fork. The widening of Cas's mystic smile tells him he's heading in the right direction. Maybe he should try something closer, something like the first time Cas's lips touched Dean's. "It hasn't been like, two months already, has it? Because monthly-"
"Put it in your mouth," Cas interrupts, as he exchanges the pie for the long neck of the bottle. He raises it to his lips that engulf it slowly, lead in by the tip of his tongue. Dean's fork freezes half-way like the instruction was too complicated for him - was that a fucking hint, or what? "And yeah, it's been, almost three months actually. But that's not it."
Cas doesn't wait for Dean to make up his mind anymore. He shoves a piece of pie unceremoniously into his mouth and Dean follows. There's sweetness, at first, of sugar melting on his tongue, overpowering all the rest then getting washed away. It becomes impossible to watch Cas's reaction with the explosion that floods his senses, as he begins to chew slowly, grind down the crispiness with the fresh softness of the apples.
Dean's not sure whose moan it is that enters the air, as his eyelids fall down to let him succumb into the pleasure. When another joins the obnoxious symphony, it ceases to matter. Everything does, except for another bite landing on Dean's tongue, before the aftertaste fades away.
"Amazin'," Dean mumbles with his mouth full, stuffing it further like the pie could double for oxygen. "Oh God, Cas, I love you. This is-"
Dean's eyes pop open, as his brain, slow on intake, registers and deciphers what his own mouth said. He turns still, carefully watching for Cas's reaction. There are no eyes wide open, no jaw dropped, not even a shadow of awkwardness in Cas's movements, as he turns the fork between his fingers. If Dean was to be thorough, or stubborn in seeking for any kind of sign Cas even heard his declaration, he'd hang into the warmth in his eyes as he looks up to him.
Play it cool, he commands himself, as cool as Cas, whose ears don't burn red, whose feet don't fidget under the chair. In what seems to be the longest in his life silence, he seeks refuge in the cooling apples, but this time he vows not to say another word.
"Our anniversary, Dean, when we first met," Cas comes to the rescue, putting the bottle down. His tone as composed as can be. "Happy anniversary."
"Oh," he huffs, testing out a smile. "Really? You're such a sap."
Certainly, Dean's no right to call Cas on his sappiness, not after he confessed his love to him with his mouth full of pie. But Cas just shrugs and doesn't take his damn, blue eyes off him.
"Wait, no," Dean says, resting the fork with a clank. He's been through the whole rebirth thing already, so he knows damn well what date it is today. He remembers all too well waking up in that coffin, ripping up the freshly made skin on his knuckles as he tore his way out of it. He also remembers the following days, sliced through by the following him everywhere echo of the odor of burnt flesh. "Nuh-huh, that was the 20th," he explains with a smug smile. "I summoned you on the 20th. That's in two days, today's only-"
"The day I cradled your soul and raised you from perdition," Cas cuts in, grin so wide as if he tried to make Dean a competition. "Technically, that's when we first met."
"Well, I don't remember it so it doesn't count," Dean announces, reaching for another slice of pie for himself and Cas.
"I do," Cas replies quickly, no longer grinning.
Dean's stomach turns as he casts his glance down to the plate. He doesn't dare to look up in case there's nothing but disgust in Cas's eyes. The memory of Alastair's apprentice hangs low between them. Dean the Torturer, he imagines, had eyes blacker than tar and the skin of smoke, blood dripping down to his elbows. And Dean the Torturer was him - is him - an abomination Cas laid his hand on, cradled. The filth Cas used to see every time his angel eyes would rest on him.
"I'd rather you didn't," Dean breathes, curling up inside.
He wishes he could disappear into the Darkness raging on above them. He wishes Cas could go back to eating his fucking pie, instead of bathing him in his stare that's too heavy for Dean to bear.
"Dean."
Dean tries to pull his palm out of the grip Cas put on it, but he fails.
"Dean," Cas repeats, stronger, closer. "Look at me."
It takes a few more calls from Cas for Dean to finally give up. He thrusts the fear, the shame into the pit of his stomach and looks up. There is nothing in Cas's eyes but his stubborn wonder. There's no grimace on his face, not a mark his mind ever wandered to that darkest corner.
Somehow all that makes it even harder for Dean not to turn away.
"Dean, you're beautiful," he assures him and Dean still reads it as lie. "You've always been beautiful. Your soul's so bright it's blinding." His words become heavy in a different way, like the hoist in an elevator, they raise him up, as he saws through the wires. "Even in Hell, battered, wounded, you were a beacon. You were so easy to find, Dean, you drew me in."
There's no escaping the blue and the tones of the Ode to Dean Cas exhales like air. It's invasive, like a pump, filling Dean's insides with rainbows and butterflies. If only to make Cas shut up, Dean tries to believe.
"Alright, I get it, Cas," he says, fighting the waves of heat passing through his cheeks. "You can stop now and eat your damn pie."
"No, Dean, you need to understand," Cas insists, now getting the sugar powder all over his pretty shirt, just to reach to Dean's face. "Hell, the Mark, they did things to you, unimaginable things, but they could never render you to their liking. There's never been an ounce of foulness in you that was your own."
Cas cradles his face with his palm like he cradled his soul all those years ago and Dean can't help but lean into it. Maybe Hell never broke him, but he sure as hell is breaking apart now.
He doesn't say a word, because he doesn't have any. He just nods and that is all Cas needs. He pulls away and looks down at his shirt, dismayed.
"Good," he says, dusting it off with a mediocre effect. "Now, eat your damn pie."
"Leave it, Cas. I'll wash them later," Dean offers, as Cas folds up his sleeves over the sink. He's got better things he can imagine doing with the rest of the day and washing the dishes and other chores do not count as any of them.
"It'll be a minute," Cas replies, running the tap.
He gives Dean no other choice but to be patient and Dean might not be doing too well. With the emptiness left by the warm taste of pie, he needs the second best thing, he wants Cas here and now.
But Cas has his hands up to elbows in water and mint-scented bubbles, and those probably come with a warning: external use only. So he waits, never taking eyes off Cas's profile. He watches the change on Cas's face as he teases him with his toes bumping his foot, with his finger sneaking behind the waistband.
"Dean." The amusement in his tone coupled with the grin kills the intended reprimand.
Before Cas can wiggle himself out of Dean's grip on his pants, Dean tugs him closer to press a kiss to his temple. It's only been three months but it feels like it's always been this way. Or that it should have, at least. It's so unreal to look back to what they were before, when they didn't have this, when Dean couldn't just kiss Cas whenever he wanted, couldn't hold him.
And yet they'd wasted so many years like that, passing each other by and losing and missing. It's hard to call Cas a constant in Dean's life, because Cas has always been the one thing that would come and go and then come back. And maybe if Dean hadn't been too afraid, too concerned with keeping the walls around him impenetrable, he wouldn't have had to lose Cas so many times.
"Hey, Cas," Dean starts and goes quiet.
"Yeah?"
He takes a deep breath. It's now or never and he's nearly certain he's got it.
"Listen," he tries again and this time doesn't stop. "About what I said earlier-"
"Huh?" Cas shuts the tap off and turns to Dean to give him his full attention, which is good, if suddenly intimidating. "When?"
Whether he's pretending not to know what this is about or honestly has no idea, Dean cannot read from his expression. He just hopes it bares no relevance on the way this'll go.
"You know, when I, uh," Dean mumbles pointlessly, waving his hand towards the table where the candles are still burning. "You know."
Luckily, this time, Cas gets a hint.
"Oh, yeah," he turns away in the search of a dish towel, "don't worry about it. I know you didn't mean it like that," he assures, taking his time to rub his hands dry. "You just loved the pie."
It feels like a gateway, an easy way out. A simple 'yes' would solve it all. Cas wouldn't mind, right? Cas knows how much of a verbally constipated moron Dean can be.
"That is what I meant, yeah," he admits, savoring the memory of heaven in his mouth. "The pie was fucking glorious."
"Thank you," Cas says simply, ready to move on, to the bedroom, hopefully.
But Dean's not done. He raises his palm to Cas's scruffy cheek, doesn't let him go.
"That was what I meant then," he corrects. "But…"
His throat goes dry. This shouldn't be this hard, when the words he wants to say have always been somewhere in the back of Dean's mind. It's been years since they first met and Dean can't even count for how many of those Dean has needed Cas, wanted Cas…
"It's okay, you don't have to say anything."
"I love you, Cas," Dean confesses, finally, before he can start looking for excuses again. "I love you," he repeats, all the weight gone from the words at once. He could go on saying them over and over again, like they're the only thing he ever needs to say. "I love you so much."
Just like that, he closes the distance, he leans in to his lips, before Cas can react. If he's to pull away, if somehow Dean was wrong to speak like that, he'll have that kiss, at least. But Cas doesn't pull away, he only pulls in, deepens the kiss and doesn't let go. As he thrusts forward, Dean's back hits the edge of the counter.
They don't break apart until they're both out of breath, and when they do, Cas's face is flushed red and brightened with the widest smile and Dean can't believe he's waited so long to say this.
"I love you too, Dean," Cas says, pressing his lips to Dean's lips, Dean's jaw, Dean's neck. "I have for so long."
He's got his hands underneath Dean's shirt, fingers biting into his hips. He's possessive, hasty, as if they were to make love for the first time. Dean's getting pretty certain they won't make it out of the kitchen, but he doesn't mind. All those years, the Apocalypses, Cas's Death, Purgatory, the Mark, all this waiting and now every second more that they're apart is too long.
"Happy anniversary, Cas."