Angel's Attire
The bell trills from the front of the store, jolting Cas upright from where he had been gradually dozing off amongst the piles of tulle and chain mail in the back room. He scrambles to his feet, straightens his backwards tie, and makes his way over to the counter, trying not to trip up on any other debris Gabriel left floating around. He only barely succeeds, managing to save himself from an unsightly tumble into a mountain of cowboy hats, and glances up to see if his customers have been sufficiently weirded out yet.
There're two of them inside the store, and they aren't even looking at Cas, for which he is eternally grateful. The girl with the red hair lets out a snort of laughter at something her companion - boyfriend, Cas assesses, noting the proximity in which they stand together - murmurs in her ear. Cas flattens down (or attempts to) his hair and clears his throat softly. The boyfriend starts a little, then does a half-turn and catches Cas' eye.
Cas' lungs seem to suddenly decide to stop working. His heart, too, jitters to a halt in its cage of ribs.
He thinks of himself as the fairly experienced traveller; he's been to Europe, after all, and the rolling hills and fields of Austria in particular struck a chord deep inside him. He thought he'd never see anything so beautiful, so green, as those meadows and mountains had been.
How wrong he turns out to be.
It's the boyfriend's eyes that catch his breath the most. They're a sparkling, glowing, technicolour green worth drowning in. If Cas had any questions as to his sexuality before, they're thrown out the window now as one look from those magnetic eyes burns him up in all the wrong (right) places.
He shifts his weight form one foot to the other, glad he has the security of the counter to hide the tented bulge in his trousers. "May I help you?" he manages to say, hoping his voice isn't too strangled with desire. Perhaps he wasn't quite successful, because the boyfriend's eyes widen momentarily, and the force of that gaze pressing down on Cas almost undoes him right then and there, but then the girl turns around too and smiles at him, and he feels so crushingly guilty he's able to regain some semblance of control.
"Yes, thanks!" she says cheerily, her ponytail bouncing behind her. She navigates her way around the weapons display and the rack of princess dresses towards the counter. "We were wondering if you had any sort of chain mail, maybe gauntlets and braces too, you know, sort of Camelot-era style?" She tilts her head to the side and scrutinises Cas in a way he's not really sure he's overly fond of.
"Oh, yes, of course we do," he finds himself responding. "Any sort of armour is around the back, so if you would care to follow me…?" He turns, making sure no embarrassing protrusions remain, and walks back into the storage room from where he'd been woken so unceremoniously only minutes ago. He feels slightly self-conscious of the mess here - he shouldn't, since it's not really his store anyway, and nothing he says will make Gabe change his messy habits - and tries to sweep some of the clutter to the side with his feet as he walks. The action only manages to unbalance him, however, and he is looking dangerously close to teetering into a pile of mermaid costumes (and if the coloured fins aren't bad enough, the shell bras are all tossed in there too, and he can absolutely imagine how this will turn out) until a strong hand reaches out to grasp his forearm and drag him backwards to safety. Cas almost dreads turning around, because he knows whose face will be there, and sure enough, the boyfriend is staring at him with a teasing smile on his lips, and God, Cas wants to kiss him again and again and again and then the boyfriend's letting go and is clearing his throat and Cas almost wants to turn and nosedive into the shell bras and stay buried there forever.
"Careful, now," is what the boyfriend says then, and if his eyes weren't bad enough, his voice is something Cas knows he won't forget in a hurry. "Don't want you getting lost in Ariel's hand-me-downs." Cas feels a blush rising, then, and turns away hurriedly before the boyfriend can notice. He shuffles over to where Gabriel's stock of armour and chain mail is haphazardly hung from mannequins and strewn about in clusters the size of small Mount Everests.
"Here we are," he says in a small voice, forcing his gaze past the boyfriend to rest on the girl instead, because she seems a little less of a threat to his self-control. She would seem that, that is, until Cas catches her calculating stare flicking between him and the boyfriend, and seven hells, he wishes the ground would just swallow him up.
"Thanks…Cas," the girl says, squinting at his nametag and smiling in a shit-eating way Cas doesn't trust one bit. "I'm Charlie, and this is Dean, by the way." When Cas shifts slightly at the mention of the boyfriend's - Dean's - name, that grin of hers only widens. "We're sort-of friends with Gabriel. Well," she amends, after Dean's disgruntled look in her direction, "I'm sort-of friends with him. Thought he'd be here, actually…"
"Oh," Cas says with a little relief. This is something he can talk about without looking like a total idiot. "He usually is, but he's gone on vacation, so he asked me to watch over the store while he's gone. I'm his brother."
"Pleased to meet you, then, Cas," Charlie smiles, genuinely this time. "Gabe has a great business here; I'd hate to see it close up just because he wasn't here to run it." She sidles around her boyfriend and Cas, assessing the array of costumes with a critical eye. "I'm thinking classic silver," she contemplates, "With some leather pants…and a skin vest, of course, and these boots," she concludes, grabbing a pair from the shelf. "Some gauntlets, too, and a belt. What d'you think, Dean-o?"
Dean shuffles forward then, brushing past Cas who tries not to breathe in but fails, and ends up inhaling the most amazing scent of leather, oil, wood shavings and apple pie. "I dunno," Dean says with a shrug as Cas tries to regain some semblance of propriety and not swing Dean around wholeheartedly to kiss the fuck out of him in front of his girlfriend. "Whatever you like, I guess."
"I swear," Charlie says to Cas with a roll of her eyes, "I hate stereotypes, but even I have to admit Dean's the worst gay guy in the history of gay guys." She lets out a snort, similar to the one from before, laughing even harder at Dean's mumbled protests. Neither of them seems to notice Cas' choked sound, as he tries to process what Charlie just said. (Gay? His mind is shouting. Then what are you waiting for? Jump his bones!) "Even Sam cares what he wears more than you!"
"I care what I wear!" Dean says indignantly. Cas' eyes, by now, must be as round as saucers.
"Oh, yeah, sure. Dean, you wear the same leather jacket and boots every single day. What am I meant to discern from that, hmm?"
"That I like my leather jacket and boots!"
"Sure, now that's a surprise -" Charlie breaks off suddenly, and turns to stare at Cas. He presses his lips together hurriedly, though by now it's too late; the squawk that had escaped from his mouth now hangs like an awkward noose between the three of them.
Dean breaks the silence. "Sorry, um, did you just squawk, man?"
"Uh…" Cas blinks owlishly for a moment. "Yes? I mean - I was just confused, I mean, I thought - I thought you two were, you know - I mean -"
"You thought Dean was my boyfriend?" Charlie cuts in, eyebrows raised.
"Um. Yes?"
Charlie and Dean look at each other, and for a split second Cas is almost afraid she was fucking with him, because surely they're boyfriend and girlfriend, surely -
Charlie snorts again, and Dean lets out a loud bark of laughter, and suddenly the both of them are uncontrollably giggling in the back room of Angel's Attire, between armoured mannequins and a pile of sequined mermaid tails (not to mention the shell bras). Cas smiles uncertainly, feeling so far out of his depth it has gone past embarrassment and looped back around to amusement.
"Sorry," Charlie gasps out after a while, clutching at her stomach. "It's just - we're just friends, Cas, I mean - God, we're both gay! It's like, the most impossible impossibility!"
"Oh. Right. Sorry." Cas clears his throat. "Sorry," he says again, and his stupid eyes won't stop staring at Dean, and Dean is staring back, and Charlie just sort of fades into the background because Cas had never really believed in love at first sight, but this? This is something different. "Sorry," he repeats, unable to stop. "Sorry. I'm sorry, Dean."
"It's fine, man," Dean says finally, tearing his gaze away after an agonisingly long moment, but the tension remains. "I mean, I'm so out of Charlie's league that even if we weren't gay - ow!"
"A treasonous handmaiden gets what she deserves," Charlie sniffs haughtily. "I know your size already, Dean, so I'm just gonna grab all this shit and ring it up myself, 'kay? I've done it before, Cas, no biggie," she says quickly, heaving all her supplies into her arms. "You two crazy kids have a nice ol' chat, alright?" The last leather gauntlet is added to her pile, and she walks out quickly, but not before peering over the top of the pile and giving Cas a jaunty wink and nod of the head. And, oh God, Dean sees it too.
That pile of shell bras is looking very appealing at the moment.
"So," Dean says when they're alone. He looks about as awkward as Cas feels, which doesn't really make either of them feel better at all.
"I'm gay," Cas blurts out, and Dean's eyes flick up to his in surprise. "I mean - just, you know. In case you wanted to know." Dean raises an eyebrow. "I mean," Cas rushes on, "Not that you'd want to know, you know, just, like, an afterthought, maybe, or, I don't know, I mean, it's only fair, since Charlie told me you were, so, I mean -"
"Cas." Dean cuts off Cas' word vomit with an incredulous look. "It's fine, you don't have to, you know, explain the laws of physics to me."
Cas blinks. "I'm not."
Dean laughs shortly, trying to hide a smile. "I know, it's like, an expression, Cas, or whatever."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
The sound of the cash register opening slices through the thick air between them. Dean runs his hand along the hairs at the nape of his neck, and God, how much does Cas want to do the same?
"I should probably -" Dean begins, glancing furtively behind him towards the exit. Cas' heart plummets to somewhere around his ankles.
"Oh, yeah. Sure. I'll um -" He half-turns, meaning to squeeze past Dean and go out to Charlie, but then a hand grasps his forearm, the same hand that stopped him from drowning in a pile of glittery fins and scalloped shell bras, and he's turning, and Dean's so fucking close this time, and his eyes are even greener from this angle, greener than all the Austrian fields and German forests combined, so green they should be a colour all their own, and from here he can see the freckles too, can almost count them, if only there weren't so many, and Dean's leaning down and Cas is straining upwards and their lips meet for a single moment that slows down everything else in space and time and Cas is almost certain he's going to spontaneously combust from all this heat, but then Dean's hand releases his arm for just a second, and Cas hasn't really found his balance yet, and the kiss isn't really helping, and he's toppling sideways, dragging Dean with him, and suddenly they're smothered in shell bras and sequins and he really should've gotten Gabe to sweep up this mess. Dean begins to laugh, then; not the full-throated one he shared with Charlie before, but a softer tone, sweeter, all of a sudden intensely private.
"Sorry," Dean murmurs against Cas' lips, plucking a shell bra from his shoulder and throwing it to the side. Cas is aware of their closeness: Dean is pressed almost down the length of him, smiling from above and it's so perfect he thinks he might burst.
"You know," a voice floats from over by the door, "This is cute and all, but if you wanted to do Ariel and Eric the right way, you could've at least let me be the mermaid." Dean grins and rolls off of Cas, glancing over at Charlie, whose arms are still full of his new armour.
"Maybe next time," he says cheerily, and Cas feels a little bubble of hope inside of him, because Dean said next time and if that's not encouraging, he doesn't know what is.
Charlie laughs and wrinkles her nose. "God, I hope not," she says with such a suggestive tone that Cas feels himself turn bright red. "Anyway," she continues, "I've called a cab, so you're excused from your handmaiden duties for today, Dean, though I expect you at my house tomorrow for LARPing, 10 a.m. sharp. Ciao, boys." With a last saucy wink, she leaves, the tinkle of the bell at the door echoing behind her.
Cas is allowed a single second to catch his breath before Dean rolls towards him again, those hands callused by perhaps a rifle, or a wrench, burying themselves in the lapels of his trenchcoat and digging into his skin. "Now, where were we?" Dean whispers, his gaze blistering, and this time it's Cas who pulls the man to him, lips meeting lips, skin meeting skin, green eyes meeting blue eyes and not looking away for a long, long while.
Author's Note: Woohoo! Costume shop AU! Will possibly be turning this into a verse! Stay tuned! Have some matchmaker Charlie! What am I doing with my life!?